Tuesday I went to visit Tina at her place, we went for a long walk together in the surrounding forest area, then to the local mall to buy some food before heading back to her place. Watched some TV/DVD, had some fun, then I got my mom to pick us up with her car so we didn’t have to take the bus/subway back to my place. She stayed over for two days, which was really lovely. Went for a couple of walks, shared candy, played WoW together and I got her to check out Death Note, which she seemed to love thankfully. We actually got around to watching 22 episodes all-together during her stay. Unfortunately I’ve managed to develop a fever of sorts, which I now believe to be the reason behind my awful tiredness after our last walk, where I just had to lie down and drift away for a while when we came home. I keep waking up during the night with terrible cold sweats, and I have a constant headache. These last days I haven’t had the energy to do a single thing. I don’t have any appetite either, so that’s probably making me even weaker. Hope it goes over quickly.

On Sunday I finished reading a book I just got a few days earlier, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A. J. Jacobs. I ordered this book as soon as I saw it was out, as I totally loved his last book (The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World), along with the stuff he’s written for Esquire. All in all it was a funny read as suspected, but not quite as good as his last book in my opinion.

I never really got into the whole RSS thing, I’ve always preferred to visit the author’s page and read the text in its intended design, and to sort of get a feeling for the differences between blogs, aestethically speaking. Firefox’ and Opera’s feed managers leaves something to be desired, which didn’t really help the cause any further either. I’ve known about dedicated feed readers, both programs and web applications, but I never got interested enough to ever check it out. Using Opera, it has been easy to check up on blogs manually so to speak, as I keep a folder with my blog bookmarks, which I then use the “open all folder items” option on to open all the various blogs in individual tabs. That solution has worked perfectly fine for me so far.

Today, for some reason, my view on RSS changed. I believe it was the single simple mention of Google Reader in a blog that triggered it, though I’m not sure why it was anything special this time. Either way, I went to check it out and put all my feeds in Google Reader, and I pretty much instantly deleted all my bookmarks, and I’m now using Google Reader exclusively to keep up with blogs. I must admit it is a rather lovely way to go on about it, it makes everything so easy to keep track of. If you read more blogs than is good for you, you should definitely check out Google Reader, much love.

I decided to check out Dexter some weeks ago, and so far it seems quite entertaining, but I’m still not completely sold. Unfortunately my Dexter viewing was cut short by the recent release of the Nip/Tuck season 4 DVD rips, which were quickly consumed. Season 4 was wonderfully entertaining, like the previous ones has been as well.

No idea why, but this week I purchased two domains, elastomania.us and elastomania.ws. Will see what I’ll do about those. I was thinking of creating some sort of skintatious/kopasite page where people can host their levels and have the whole automatic updating thing going on, but I don’t know if I’ll have the energy to create such a thing.

On Tuesday I had to help my mom and uncle with staining a house in Jessheim, where my uncle lives. Absolutely horrid work, but it felt sort of good to do something physical, even if it left me sore for days. Using a paint brush up and down with my mouse arm didn’t exactly work out too well. We only got one of the sides done, along with cleaning and scrubbing the three other sides, so the plan is to go back tomorrow and stain some more. I really really hope it rains tonight so it gets postponed.

Also, bought some more books!

• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  by Lewis Carrol
• The Great Gatsby
  by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Beowulf
• Stardust
  by Neil Gaiman
• Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
  by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett
• It
  by Stephen King
• Don Quixote
  by Miguel De Cervantes

Received Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling on Wednesday, and just finished it last night before I went to bed. It was so delightful to read Harry Potter again, I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time now. It didn’t disappoint, and it felt like a very worthy end to this great series. I’m having a hard time deciding on what the best book in the series was, but I think for me this was the second best, perhaps tied with the Order of the Phoenix, and trailing right after the Half-Blood Prince (being the best). It’s hard to say really, as I feel all three of them are so close to each other. What I can say for sure is that the first three books are definitely the weakest ones compared to the last three, with the fourth one hovering somewhere inbetween. Am I alone in this view?

Started reading Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami yesterday, and just finished it earlier today. This is the second novel by Murakami I’ve read, and it was just as amazing as I thought Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World was. They are very different from each other theme-wise, but the mood and writing style was absolutely wonderful in both of them. Reading it really made me wish I was Watanabe (the main character) in a way, there was something appealing about his lifestyle and the events that happened to him, specially his relationships. You’ll have to read it to know what I mean, but in short (and in very simple terms) it’s about a man who recalls his student days and his love affairs to two girls. And it’s completely different from what it sounds like, so I recommend reading it. There was something romantic about the whole thing, but without actually being romantic, as little sense as that might make.

Murakami is now one of the few authors I’ve read more than one book from, which is nice. In my book adventures so far the last years, I’ve ordered and read books of very varying subjects, styles and authors, trying to figure out what I like. Which means that I still haven’t really developed any favorite authors yet. Now I can say for sure that Haruki Murakami is one of them. My mom bought my dad a small collection of his novels last christmas, so I’ll most likely be going through those the next few weeks.

I’m a bit uncertain about what I prefer when it comes to non-English and non-Norwegian books. I read my first Murakami in English, and this second one I read in Norwegian. Then I noticed one of the other books in the collection I’ll be reading later is a Norwegian translation from an English translation, hmm. First of, I really enjoy reading in English, and developing my English skills at the same time. On the other hand, I read and write English every single day — almost exclusively — and I sort of feel that my Norwegian knowledge is slowly dwindling away bit by bit. I often find myself thinking in English, and sometimes when writing in Norwegian I can’t come up with the right word for something, and I have to go look in the English-Norwegian dictionary to find it. It’s kind of scary, but I’m hoping it’s just random fragments and that it’s nothing too serious.

To counter this however, I joined “The Norwegian Book Clubs” yesterday. It’s just what it sounds like, a book club where you get offers every month for a book, but with no commitment to buying anything, as long as you don’t forget to cancel them every month. It’s a small price to pay in my opinion, considering it gives you pretty good discounts on other books whenever you shop normally. Not to mention that you get 3 free books (except shipping expenses) when you sign up. So for my 3 free books I chose to get some Norwegian ones, or rather one Norwegian and two Norwegian translations: Menn som hater kvinner (Orig.: Män som hatar kvinnor, Eng: Men Who Hate Women) by Stieg Larsson, Ut og stjæle hester (Eng: Out Stealing Horses) by Per Petterson, and Labyrinten (Eng: Labyrinth) by Kate Mosse (curiosly, whose Norwegian translation seem to have gotten rave reviews here, contrary to its Amazong rating. I wonder if we have bad taste, or just good translators?).

Today I finally finished reading The Golem’s Eye (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 2) by Jonathan Stroud — after having started on it months ago, but then got into a book-funk of sorts where I didn’t feel like reading anything. Just as the first book in the series, it was rather enjoyable, if perhaps not a bit simple. Then again, it’s not aimed at adults — not that I consider myself or my reading skills as one.

It felt nice to read something again, and I’m sure it will have served as a nice warm up to the new Harry Potter book, if I ever actually get it. I love Amazon, but this pre-order was rather pointless. It’s been 2 weeks since its release and I still haven’t received it. They don’t sell the US version here anyway, so it’s not like I would have bought it somewhere else, but still, gah.

I just finished reading the fifth installment in the Artemis Fowl series today; The Lost Colony. The series is mainly aimed at kids as far as I know, but I still can’t help but to thoroughly enjoy it. I’ve loved every single book in the series so far, they are a very easy read and it’s those type of books where you get pretty engulfed in the action and just want to keep on reading. Like the previous books in the series, it didn’t take me too long to finish this one either.

If you’re not too familiar with these books, Artemis Fowl is a wealthy teenage genius who mixes himself up with the world of fairies, gnomes, trolls and imps in his search for power and gold. It’s a sort of Harry Potter light, but it’s not really fair to compare them, as they deal with very different things and their premises are not the same. Artemis Fowl is a bit more light weight in the language, and also contains a bit more tongue in cheek humour, which is totally delightful.

In book five, Artemis gets involved with the destruction of a (you guessed it) colony, where imps-cum-demons live, only waiting to slay the human population. Luckily he gets helps from the fairy police and his friend-slash-bodyguard as usual. This time he also runs into a worthy opponent wanting to get ahold of one of the demons who are being randomly transported to earth as a result of their colony’s impending destruction.

Enjoyable read, as usual from Artemis Fowl.

This last week I have been reading Sophie’s World (Sofies Verden) by Jostein Gaarder. One of his earlier books, The Solitaire Mystery (Kabalmysteriet), is one of my all time favorite books, so I figured I should read this one as well, which is his most famous novel.

It’s basically an introduction to philosophy, wrapped in a novel. Sophie, a 15 year old girl, has an encounter with a middle aged man who starts writing her mysterious notes relating to philosophy and essentially makes her his pupil, as he takes her through the history of philosophy throughout the world, up until the 20th century. As events unfold, Sophie starts questioning life and her existence, something which is only further fueled when she gets mixed up into strange events concerning a seemingly non-existent girl in another world.

The first half of the novel went rather slowly, consisting mostly of facts and with very little progression of the actual story. The second half of the book was a much more enjoyable read however. It certainly makes you think twice about life in some way or another. Still, it doesn’t even come close to the joy that is The Solitaire Mystery, which is at least twice as awesome in my opinion.

As stated in the previous entry, I finally feel like I should do something about my life, for real. At least give it a try.

The last days I’ve checked out a few options about doing some online courses to graduate and get my high school diploma. Meaning I could eventually get into a university if I should ever want to (at this point I have no desire to do so). Maybe feel like less of a loser and a moron.

The courses seems to pretty steeply priced, at least compared to my economy at this point. But I figured I’d just start off by buying the necessary books and study on my own, and perhaps signing up for an exam or two if I feel I understand everything. I like the idea of studying in my own pace and doing the exams whenever I want to.

In order to get my diploma, I need to do these courses: Norwegian, English, Natural Science, Sociology, Newer History and Math. All which amounts to more or less 3 years worth of schooling. I’m not quite sure yet what sort of time period I should give myself to complete everything. I only had the money right now to buy one book, which is one of the two newer history books, about global history. If everything goes OK, I’m thinking that I can sign up for the exam this next spring. Then perhaps I’ll have bought a few more books and can sign up for a few more exams the next winter.

I think the hardest part will be the math and natural science courses, but I think I might be able to get myself ready for the exams the spring after this one and have everything finished. Perhaps it’s aiming a bit high, but oh well. I can just redo exams if I fail at anything after all.

Been reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami this week. Finished it last night right before I went to bed. I’ve had this lying around in my book shelf for quite a while now, but haven’t gotten around to reading it before now. I’m glad I ended up picking it up, because it was fucking awesome.

The story? I’m not sure I’d be able to explain it, thank god for Amazon: The last surviving victim of an experiment that implanted the subjects’ heads with electrodes that decipher coded messages is the unnamed narrator of this excellent book by Murakami, one of Japan’s best-selling novelists and winner of the prestigious Tanizaki prize. Half the chapters are set in Tokyo, where the narrator negotiates underground worlds populated by INKlings, dodges opponents of both sides of a raging high-tech infowar, and engages in an affair with a beautiful librarian with a gargantuan appetite. In alternating chapters he tries to reunite with his mind and his shadow, from which he has been severed by the grim, dark “replacement” consciousness implanted in him by a dotty neurophysiologist. Both worlds share the unearthly theme of unicorn skulls that moan and glow.

It took me a few chapters before I got into it, but once you get used to the two partially entwining stories there’s no stopping as they unravel each other. If the other works by Murakami is anything like this, I can see myself reading a lot more by him.

No, not that kind. Woke up tonight to a power outtage, and I realised how fucked I am without power in my life. I got really restless trying to find something to do. I ended up reading a book, which sort of sparked my interest again in reading. It’s been way too long since the last time I read something now, so I guess something good came out of it.

The power outtage probably only lasted a few minutes or even seconds, but it was in the middle of the night and after a few unsuccessful attempts at the circuit breaker box, tripping the breakers over and over, I figured I should keep the noise down since my parents were sleeping and go at it in the morning instead. ~7 painful hours without power!

It was pretty nice to light some candles and cuddle up beneath a blanket and read a book though. I ended up reading The Giver by Lois Lowry. It was OK I guess, but the ending was pretty horrible, a real let-down. Noticed that a new book in the Artemis Fowl series came out two months ago, so I ordered it together with the second and third book in the Bartimaeus Trilogy, wohoo.