Petter Solberg's Noglish

Petter Solberg was one of the World's top Rally drivers and in 2003 was the first Norwegian to win the World Rally Championship. How a Norwegian ever learns to drive that fast in a country which has some of the World's most draconian speed limits and enforcement is a mystery. Perhaps there are less police on the roads in the eastern part of Norway, anyway a digression from the purpose of the post.

While the rest of the World knows Solberg for his driving, he is almost as famous in Norway for his very poor english, especially when he is excited. He has a tendency to mix up Norwegian and English (Noglish)and come out with some class phrases - here are a few class examples that have been in TV interviews sent to me by Trygve.

(Note that "fart" is the Norwegian word for "speed"

"I had a very big fart, and suddenly I fucked off the road"
"I had a stop in the start"
"I`m driving round the corner, and crash in the christmas tree."
"I had bad pigs in my dekk" (winter tires with studs are called pegg dekker)
"It was a moose in the engine"
"but but, it is't only only you know"
"It wåss so møch dog on the window"
"It's not only only, but but "
"it was werry werry funny"
"he is my wife in the car ehh....no sex"
"i drived and then it was a sving and a sving til så a stein and pang i drived rett in the juletre"
"When i keim around the corner, it all went to Hælvette" (Hælvette is the universal Norwegian swear word, soemwhere between "fuckin hell and shit")
"The car understyrt ænd i was going strait fram"
"I came with a great fart and dishappered as a prikk in the sky''
"i just take full fart and Drive "
"The rat is loose"

And my favorite
"It's not the fart that kills you, it's the smell" (smell being a Norwegian word for impact or crash)

Friday Joke, - dogs and cats

Things are a bit manic at the moment but normal service will be resumed soon.
In the meantime the friday joke is an oldie but I think a goodie!

The difference between dogs and cats as revealed from their diary entrys...

Have a good weekend

EXCERPTS FROM A DOG'S DIARY

8:00 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
9:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
9:40 am - OH BOY! A WALK! MY FAVORITE!
10:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
11:30 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
12:00 noon - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
1:00 PM - OH BOY! THE YARD! MY FAVORITE!
1:30 PM - ooooooo. bath. bummer.
4:00 PM - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
5:00 PM - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
5:30 PM - OH BOY! MOM! MY FAVORITE!

EXCERPTS FROM A CAT'S DIARY

DAY 752 - My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture.

Tomorrow I may eat another houseplant.

DAY 761 - Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded, must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair...must try this on their bed.

DAY 765 - Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body, in attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was...Hmmm. Not working according to plan.

DAY 768 - I am finally aware of how sadistic they are. For no good reason I was chosen for the water torture. This time however it included a burning foamy chemical called "shampoo." What sick minds could invent such a liquid? My only consolation is the piece of thumb still stuck between my teeth.

DAY 771 - There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary confinement throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the food. More importantly I overheard that my confinement was due to MY power of "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.

DAY 774 - I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit. The bird on the other hand has got to be an informant, and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room his safety is assured. But I can wait; it is only a matter of time.

Friday fun with words

Trad climbing in the rain last night with Sandy - the weather has been shitte this summer!

In an effort to bet the rain we are off to Hemsedal to hurtle down a ski run on a bicycle - given how much it can hurt when its covered in snow I imagine the potential for pain when its just mud, rocks and trees is quite high

In the mean time here are some witty anagrams...

DORMITORY:
DIRTY ROOM

PRESBYTERIAN:
BEST IN PRAYER

ASTRONOMER:
MOON STARER

DESPERATION:
A ROPE ENDS IT

THE EYES:
THEY SEE

GEORGE BUSH:
HE BUGS GORE

THE MORSE CODE:
HERE COME DOTS

SLOT MACHINES:
CASH LOST IN ME

ANIMOSITY:
IS NO AMITY

ELECTION RESULTS:
LIES - LET'S RECOUNT

SNOOZE ALARMS:
ALAS! NO MORE Z 'S

A DECIMAL POINT:
IM A DOT IN PLACE

THE EARTHQUAKES:
THAT QUEER SHAKE

ELEVEN PLUS TWO:
TWELVE PLUS ONE

MOTHER-IN-LAW:
WOMAN HITLER

Web 2.0 the decline of content

In these days of web 2.0 and User Generated Content it's interesting to note that there is steady trend towards less and less material.

Back in the good ole days, say 5 years ago, if you wanted to put something on the web, you learnt HTML and made a personal website. It had numerous pages and lots of information. A good example is http://www.dougalearth.com/ the website for earth scientist and adventurer Dougal Jerram, which has news, info on his scientific work and a page on his quest to be a media celebrity.

Next came the rise of the blogs, such as the one you are reading now. A simpler structure, with just a single page that the user has to periodically update . Layers on layers of materially are laid down sequentially like a sedimentary succession, the stuff on the top gets worked over by the burrowing animals of the inetrnet while the stuff that's buried deep down ferments.

The next generation was facebook, myspace etc. Even easier to maintain than a website or blog, primarily because they don't involve any effort such as actually writing anything. You just update your status, comment on your friends and load the occasional picture. This is fine and a nice way to keep in touch with friends you don't see very often however it's all interspersed with thinly veiled psychological profiling such as "which star wars character are you? These provide large volumes of marketing info about you that the owners of the site can then sell on. Maybe I'm cynical but I find it all a bit scary. Some Grey Bloke has a fantastic insight into Facebook here.

The most recent stage in the reduction of content is twitter. Here the entire user generated content has been cut to 140 characters. Given that a "twitter" is defined as "a short burst of inconsequential information" it is hardly surprising that in a recent survey of 2000 tweets, 'pointless babble' accounted for 40.55%.

So what is the future? I think I need to develop a site where users just post a single word or maybe a picture and then you just contact the advertisers directly yourself and tell them what you want shoved down your throat.

Gone Country... The wild west of Norway is a freak show!

I am not a very big country and western fan. I have spent enough time in the western USA to appreciate what it is about and understand it has a place. I find the music and it's general inherent misery rather comical

ma woman just ran off with my padner
toke ma brand new pick-up truck
ran over my dwg an hit my trayler
Im so miserable n lonesome, yeah yeah

etc etc

Anyway yesterday was Åsmund's stag party and in Norway they do things a bit differently. Generally the guy getting married has no say on the day and no idea when it will be. He's best man organises it and his buddies kidnap him and then spend a day making him do fun and sometimes stupid stuff.

Åsmund is a big country fan, ever since his days in Utah when he took to all things western, like a bull in a rodeo. So Espen et al organised his stag day to coincide with a concert by Alan Jackson who apparantly is very famous and has sold 50 million records! It's the first time Jackson has been outside of America.

So they kidnapped Åsmund and took him paintballing. The weather was horrible! Mark and I joined at lunch time and we took a bus to Radøy and had a barbq in Espen's girlfriends families, boat house - it was very pleasant and much beer and banter ensued. Then we took the bus, stopping every 15 mins for a piss break, to the concert. The weather was getting worse than horrible.

The concert was way out in the sticks, about 30 km outside of Bergen at a race track. It was pouring with rain and there was mud everywhere, fortunately the main event was in the car park so at least we didn't drown. The race track is not a regular gig location (thank god!) and the organisation was the definition of "really piss poor", but more on that later.

The highlight was the people - I have never seen such an out and out freak show in Norway, in fact anywhere in the World! Gone were the pretty girls and uber trendy boys of a normal night out, replaced by a collection of seriously inbred oddballs with big foreheads, under shot jaws and wild staring eyes. Cowboys hats were in abundance, which is a bit naff but kinda funny, what was far more disturbing was 50 year old men dressed from head to toe in cowboy gear, complete with bootlace tie and, I kid you not, a sheriffs star! These are adults, who presumably hold down some sort of job! It was like being in some sort of fetish club, but more disturbing.

However, what has to be said was that despite the totally awful weather everyone was in good spirits, they stood, covered in crap, getting totally soaked by the rain and as you looked around all your saw were smiles (most of the lopsided!). These people truly are water proof.

The organisation at the event was a shambles, the beer queues were a mile long and nobody seemed to have a clue what was going on. The que was so long and not moving that we just gave up and stood in the rain, sobering up.

I am not a big C&W fan but the crowd seemed to love him and know all the songs. He tried hard to get things going and the serious fans seemed happy, right down to the tediously inevtiable swing dancing, which is only mildly more appropriate here than at an AC/DC concert.

Mark and I lost the other guys and after about an hour and half decided to try and get back to Bergen. We were not alone in that sentiment. It was chaos, no-one had any idea of what was going on, the stewards were the most clueless. We wandered about for ages trying to find one of the free shuttle buses, being given one set of bogus directions after another. Eventually we found the loading point and it was an utter zoo. Fortunately we were close to the front as the rest of the concert finished. There was a lot of very pissed, piss wet through and rapidly getting pissed off people behind us. We waited an hour for the buses to arrive. Apparently there was 100, which may sound a lot but given the crowd of 20+ thousand and an hour round trip to Bergen, we reckoned the people at the back wouldn't be getting home until about 3 am. When the buses did return there was a bit if a mad surge while the hapless security guards tried in vain to control the crowd. We were lucky enough to get a bus and were back in town by midnight.

A quick trip to the pub to catch up with the beer we had missed and the end of a rather interesting cultural evening. Some lessons
1. Norwegians really are water proof
2. Don't go to a concert at the Bergen Travparc
3. The people who organised that event should not be allowed to organise a child's birthday party, let alone a major concert
4. Beneath it's cool trendy exterior there is a lot of very very strange people in western Norway
5. The music was fine, if that is what you are in to. I would have loved to hear him call home and tell his wife about his day....

Anyway this is what the local press said and there are a few pics here and an article about a guy who drove for 34 hours here and even some idiots who charted a plane here. Which given the hassle we and 20,000 other people had getting home, may not have been a bad idea. Even if you don't speak Norwegian it's worth checking out the pictures - then you'll see what I mean!

Friday Joke on Sunday...

Friday Joke very late, last week was pretty busy. Flew to Houston on Sunday, worked a couple of 16 hour days, then flew back on wednesday night, arrived in the office thursday afternoon only 5 hours late (I love KLM) and was in a video conference until 9pm. Then up at 5am for a flight to Stavanger, a day of meeting and then back to the lair to collapse in a heap.

Weather is shit so at least I am not missing out on doing anything fun!

Anyway a few funny pics I found on the web a while back....

A

Taken mainly from here and here where more of the same can be found. Assuming you are really that bored at work.

A

Friday joke - Bonus

Bonus friday joke because:

a. this weeks was pretty lame

b. it's now actually stopped raining

c. because I think this is just so wonderfully random I had to share it...

God helg!

Friday joke - the weather

The weather is crap - I expect it to be be crap in November but this is supposed to be summer! The following is a screengrab of the long term forecast from the fairly reliable http://www.yr.no/. The outlook is rain at the weekend with some more rain on Monday and Tuesday, becoming rainy towards the end of the week.

My Norwegian friends will not doubt be wandering around chanting "no such thing as bad weather only bad clothing" and perhaps they are right.

So some weather related jokes

Politically correct
The Royal Commission for Political Correctness, has announced today that the local climate in the UK should no longer be referred to as "English Weather."

Rather than offend a growing portion of the population, it will now be referred to as "Muslim Weather."

In other words - partly Sunni, but mostly Shi'ite.

The golfer
Every Saturday morning an avid golfer gets up early to catch his morning tee time and spend the better part of his day playing golf.

One Saturday morning, as is his schedule, he gets up early, eats a quick breakfast and heads out to the course. The weather is terrible; there’s a torrential downpour with snow mixing in and a 50 mph wind.

Defeated, he packs it in early and decides to return home, deciding he can go back out later if the weather improves. He comes back into the house and turns on the TV to the weather channel, which informs him it’s only going to get worse. He puts his clubs back into the closet, quietly undresses, then slips back into bed with his wife. “The weather out there is terrible,” he whispers.

“Yeah,” she replies, “can you believe my stupid husband is out playing golf?”

What do they do all day?

Very cool interactive graphic from the NY Times which shows what a "typical american" is doing at anytime during the day. Can also be investigated for different groups picking catagories in the top corner - cool in a nerdy kind of way that appeals to me. Click on the picture to go to the interactive site.
















Some wierd stuff

Only 20% of 15-24 year olds seem to be in school during the day

Only 30% of people are watching TV at 8pm - thought it would have been way more

The whole thing looks like some basin modelling cross section, but that could just be because I am geology obsessed



From Gordon via facebook

A thought for all you creationists...

j

(Image from DrEvil )

A house with six bins...

Norway is way ahead of the rest of the World in terms of re-cycling.

I now have 6 (yes six) separate bins in my house

1. Glass and tin cans

2. Food waste

3. Bottles and cans with a refund (amusingly called pants!)

4. Paper

5. Plastic

6. General rubbish (although after all that I am not sure what is left)

The glass and tin cans have to be taken to the bottle bank. The food stuff goes for compost. The paper is burnt to provide heating for communal buildings. This has the advantage that any type of paper and cardboard can be thrown in. Certain glass and plastic bottles along with aluminum cans get taken to a recycling machine at the supermarket which dispenses a ticket that can be used for a discount on your shopping. Therefore both the shop and the costumer benefit in a win-win situation. Recycling the plastic is the latest. It’s amazing how much pointless plastic packaging there is and not throwing it straight into the rubbish is extremely satisfying.

It’s also telling to watch Norwegian’s abroad as they hunt for somewhere other than the bin to put drinks bottles and cans. The look extremely uncomfortable as the realize there isn’t anywhere and it's all going straight to the land-fill.