With all this time, and not much to do then to sit and wait to get from A to B, I had to find something that helped time go by faster, so I decided it was time to start reading books again.
I remember when I was working at Ringnes E.C. Dahls Bryggeri A/S, I used to listen to audio books a lot, and I really miss that, so after searching around a bit I found an application for my iPhone that suited my needs called Stanza. Seeing as I have my hands free at the bus and train, I figured I could save storage space and time by reading eBooks instead of audio books, and for this Stanza is perfect.

So far I h ave managed to get through some books already, so here’s a short review of what I think about them:

Dan Brown – The Lost Symbol

No doubt a very intriguing book, and reading it made time just fly by in seconds, but during the entire book, one thing kept bothering me. Dan Brown is mocking every conspiracy theorist that disagrees with what he means is correct, through his character Robert Langdon. Why does he do that? Sure, he might disagree with them, but to openly mock people thinking that the Freemasons where something more then just a society of great men really bothers me. In example, there are people that believe Freemasons where satanic worshippers, and they are in their liberty to believe that. Not to be told that they are stupid to think like this by a character in a book.
The story itself was very good though, very typical Dan Brown-esque, with crime, action, mysteries and a touch of romance. Just the way we like it.

The graveyard book

I have been wanting to read this book ever since it came out, and Alina have the book, but I usually never get around to picking up a book when I get home, and I hate lugging books around with me when I’m out, so getting this book as an eBook right away was kind of predestined. The book is classified as a children’s book, but it should really be classified as “for all ages”, because this book is just as entertaining and fun for an adult as a child.

That’s the books I have been reading so far, and right now I’m currently reading this book:

World of Warcraft: Arthas: Rise of the Lich King

I have really not read much of this yet, but the first chapter seems promising. I have a feeling that I’m going to read through this book in no time, as I love the Warcraft lore.

Also on my list of books-to-read are these (in no particular order):

Stephen King – The stand
Neil Gaiman – Anansi boys
Max Brooks – World war Z
Mel Odom – Hellgate London
Terry Brooks – The Landover series
Robert Jordan – Wheel of time series
Grahame-Smith Seth – Pride and Prejudice and zombies
Yann Martel – Life of Pi
Terry Pratchett – The colour of magic
Brent Weeks – The way of shadows
Orson Scott Card – Enders game

There are more as well, but these should keep me busy for quite a lot of work days.

• We are heading over to Stockholm this Friday. There we will be looking at apartments that we have arranged meetings with.

• Stockholm HQ will be paying for our hotel room for the weekend.

• We have made an advert announcing that we are looking for an apartment and t hat we are going to Stockholm this weekend here, there has been some response, but nothing interesting yet. One was too expensive (8300,-) and the other sent us a link to an advert that wasn’t correct. Seems the person had pasted the wrong link or something.

Hopefully by the end of this week we will have an apartment to move into. We are also going to be working on getting a deal with a company to move our things to Stockholm. This will probably also be covered by my company.

It also seems that we are having progress with our current apartment. The landlord have had several people over to look at the apartment, and we have about 3 people interested. He will be showing more people the apartment this Friday, which means there will be someone taking over the apartment when we move. We had some problems with the landlord regarding this, but it’s been sorted out.. We’ll see how that goes.

Next week will probably consist of packing up everything, getting rid of trash we won’t need (so if someone will be able to drive us around and get rid of some junk, please let us know!)  and arranging for pick-up/drop off. If everything goes according to plan, we will be living in Stockholm from 01.09.2009!

We had a good time, met allot of family and ate allot of food (safe to say I was pretty stuffed several times during the weekend) :)
The rite of passage was nice, although they could probably have spared some of the performances, the ones that were nice, were really nice. There was two girls playing guitar in the beginning, and this one girl had a voice JUST like Jolie Holland, which is an artist i really admire. Oh yeah, and Anders (my little brother) didn’t get his rite of passage in church, but rather a humane society rite of passage.

On our way back we had some problems and got pretty stressed out. See I (Johnny) did the clever thing of forgetting to write down the reference number for our trip back, because I thought I could just show them my VISA card at the desk, and they’d give it to us. Alas, at Skien there is no desk of course, only a silly machine, so when we got on the train, we had to get a number to the support phone for the train company, get a referance number from them and pick up the tickets 2 stations after Skien. Luckily everything went smooth and we got our tickets. Otherwise we’d have to pay allot extra… :]

If you wish to go trough the pictures more thouroughly, don’t be afraid to go to the picasa gallery here and have a look in order to see pictures in higher resolutions (or even better, create your own as well, and I can link you up as friends and we can all share our photos!). I’ve tried sorting everything correctly, and commenting on everything, but at a current count of over 350 pictures, it takes a while. Still, I’m working on it and hopefully I’ll have everything sorted soon. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures :)

P.S: Yes, the comments are in Norwegian, so sorry for any English readers (yes, I’m talking to you guys), but at least enjoy the pictures, and disable captions if they’re distracting.

So! After a very long buss drive and practically no sleep at all, grumpy and hungry, we arrive at Oslo buss terminal. Our buss towards Skien of course leave just as we manage to find the platform, so we end up having to wait for 2 hours for the next one. Right now we’re at the floor, eating ice cream and waiting. Hopefully we will get to Skien soon, so we can get a shower, some food and some sleep.
Ciao for now!

As some might know by now, me and Alina have moved to an new apartment. It’s about 28square meters (all tough the ad said 38, but It’s big enough for us either way), the rent is at a 6000kr a month + electricity and Internet, and it’s pretty close to town (about 10minute walk). First of all, I’d just like to thank the following people for helping out the Wednesday previous week: Sonja, Stian, Inger-Lise, Helen and Alinas parents. You guys were great and I’m really happy that you could all make it. It would have been hell without you.

Now that we’re a bit more settled, I figured I was calmed enough to actually sit down and write something. It’s still a bit messy here. Things needs to be moved into the attic, there’s still garbage that needs to be taken out, but most of the stuff has now been set up. It still looks a bit “thin” in the living room though, seeing as we still don’t have a couch, but hopefully we’ll get that fixed shortly.
There’s still allot of stuff here that needs to get fixed by the landlord though. The sink is slightly cracked and the pipes are leaking, the washing machine is leaking, the sink in the kitchen is leaking, but thankfully not enough to make it a problem. Hopefully he’ll be able to check it out and fix it soon.

Economy wise, moving has been quite the black hole though. We’ve bought quite allot of stuff after we moved in, and seeing as I’m poor as always, Alina has been loaning me the money so we can buy stuff together. Now I owe her quite allot of money, and we’re going to England… No doubt my next paycheck will also be dried out pretty quick. Still, I’ll manage though, and Alina is so kind and gives me the time I need to pay her back.

And for those that didn’t know, yeah we’re going to London this easter! I’m so looking forward to it. We’ll stay at a hostel in town, and be hardcore tourists, seeing the sites, eating the food and just having a great time over there. Hopefully Ste and Kelly will come down from Birmingham and spend the day with us as well. We’ll probably be staying there for about 1 and 1/2 week before we head back, so we’ll have plenty of time to see stuff. I’ll try to keep the blog updated as a sort of travel blog if anyone is interested. Also, we’ll be in Skien for a couple of days as well before we head to London, so if any of the ol’ Skien gang is present, please let me know and we’ll hang :p

Computer wise haven’t been much happening to be honest. I’m dying to get a server up and running, but there’s no point until we got ourself a Internet connection. For now we’re using our dumb neighbors unsecured WLAN net, but we don’t know how long it will last until he figures out there’s about 20 or 30 people on his router at all times, so better wait for our own before setting up anything. I’ve done some scripting though, and done quite allot of changes to the Ninja Monkeys forum. Now it’s got quite allot of hacks and tweaks to make it look pimp. I love setting up stuff like that.

Well, best be off now I guess. I’m hungry as hell, and I really should send a text to Alina and check how her medical examination went. I should also tidy up a bit here and get a shower…

For now, ta ta!

Yesterday me and Alina had a quiet evening alone. The plan was really to have a combined birthday party for me and Elin, but we didn’t really get to setting anything up, so it ended up being postponed until next weekend, presumably.
So Alina and I just had some snacks, watched American Beauty, then made some fajitas and watched Apocalypto. Then I got a back rub and we went to bed, comfy =)

Today we’ve more or less spent the entire day in bed and in front of the computer. It’s probably about time we get a good shower, some breakfast and have a Sunday hike, just to not feel the entire day has been wasted.

Tomorrow is my birthday by the way :D So I’m not working (took the day of) and will just spend the day with Alina and hopefully(?) friends. We’ll see. The rest of the week is work work work, just like the forthcoming weeks will be.
See as some might know, and some might not, I’ve moved out of gamle kongevei 59 and moved in with Alina in her small apartment complex, but sadly I’ve still have to pay rent on gkv for another month before it’s all done with, and that’s 5500kr… Still, it’s partially my own fault though. I might get someone to rent there for a short period, so I won’t have to pay full rent, but I kind of doubt people would be interested in renting for only a month.
The plans ahead are that me and Alina will live another two months in her place, before we find an apartment and move. If we get to do that before or after we go to London I’m not sure, but we’ll see how it all goes.

I’ll try to keep this place more updated from now on :)

Onwards to Hamar
Hamar next stop. I’m about an hour on my way now, and I’ve had some food, a drink and read a couple of chapters in my book, world of warcraft: tides of war. I’s really interesting, as it involves how the different alliances were formed, both alliance and horde, and how the war in hillsbrad foothills fared.
Reading these books, I thought I’d get really into gaming again, but it’s not as bad as i thought. I believe it’s much more of a therapy then an agitator, and besides. I love fantasy novels, and the Warcraft world is so vast, with so much going on, that it’s more then enough reading and making oneself a part of the story.
I just realized by the way, I forgot headphones…. Which means I won’t be able to watch movies on my laptop on the train from Hamar to Skien, unless I 1: get some headphones in Hamar, or 2: borrow some headphones from a guy i know that is heading to Skien as well, or 3: that I’ll be alone in the wagon. I’m kind of hoping for the latter :]
Ah well, I still have my books if all else fails.Just one more thing before I’ll be sending this post.
People whom are forcing themselves into being nice towards strangers annoy me! Jeez…

At last, Skien
Or, well partially. I’m on the train towards Skien. I also set up my computer next to this guy I know that’s also heading home, and we’re chatting allot about sci-fi shows. Makes time go allot faster :)
Oh, and we almost lost the train for a second. The train warden blew his whistle and the alarm went off, so I pulled the guy with me in and we continued inside the train instead. Just seconds after the train starts moving and we’re off. Scary :]
And to top it off, my stomach kind of hurts :(
Well, I’m in Oslo now, home soon!

Today I’ll probably try to do at least something (seeing as I have to pack my clothes etc. :p). I’m heading towards town soon to meet up with Alina at a café. She’s just finished her last exam of the year, the math exam. And is pretty exhausted from what I understand. Not only did she get about 4-5 hours sleep last night, but she also had to cram 19 examples and math formulas into one piece of paper. It seems like the whole thing went rather good though, so I’ve no doubt she’ll pass :)

Made a few changes to the page as you might have noticed as well. Removed the silly MSN and Skype status icons, seeing as they just made it look all cluttered, and they also pulled down the load time on the page quite allot. I did however add a widget which reads the latest updates on my videoDB, so you can see the latest 5 movies I’ve bought and added to my database.

Anyway, I should be off. I’ll probably (no doubt) be blogging when I’m on the train, and also when I arrive in Skien. Just to keep anyone that might be interested updated. Ciao!