Finally I managed to finish this, I started writing this weeks ago right after the meeting had ended, but for some reason it turned out to be really hard to write. It’s far from an accurate depiction of the meeting. There is so much stuff missing, and there is no way to truly capture all the funny moments in some short text.

Thursday the 20th \DC started his bus ride from Skien down to Oslo, and we agreed that I’d meet him down at the bus terminal at 13:30. I finished packing my bag with the last remaining items, then headed down to meet him at 13:00 or so. His bus arrived pretty much exactly when it was supposed to, though I had some trouble finding out where the fuck he was, but managed to locate him eventually with the help of some mobile phone detective skills. Strolled down to the subway station and headed back to my apartment where we just played some Elma, ate some hot dogs and chilled out until 18:00 when we decided to leave in order to catch our boat without having to worry about being late and stuff like that. Two subway stops and about 1km of walking later, we arrived at Stena Line’s building and we proceeded to check in.

It was something like an hour before the boat was leaving, so we had plenty of time to kill in the waiting hall. After some time our eyes caught a glimpse of the cutest girl ever, this totally illegal girl that was sitting with her family in a short skirt with a pair of sexy stockings on, damn she was hot. Looking at her, the rest of the time flew by quite quickly. Boat arrived eventually and the boarding began, though we waited a while before we started boarding because of the thick crowd and long queue, it was better to just sit down and relax while everybody else slowly crawled their way inside. Found our way to our cabin, got our stuff settled down then roamed around the ship checking out the shops and restaurants available. They always have the suckiest eating places on board ships, there’s always just some crappy buffet place, but we just wanted something easy like hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries or whatever. The closest we came was a place selling some hot dogs and pizza slices, both which sucked ass, but at least it was food of some kind. After that I think we popped into the perfume store, as I needed to buy some new deoderants. Of course I managed to get sprayed with some god awful perfume by one of those ladies, \DC graciously dodged her.

Later on we went to one of the bars and got our drink on. Started with some standard Ringnes beer, that was quickly dismissed for the rest of the night with the superior Heineken. \DC also did some Jägermeister shots with his beer, god rest his soul. Nothing too exciting happened during our stay in the bar, got pretty drunk after a while and just went back to our cabin and feel asleep. That night sucked ass, as it was impossible to stay asleep for more than 30 minutes at a time, I kept waking up several times during the night, as did \DC I think. Got up around 6:45 or so, contemplated going to the tax free shop to buy something, but everything is so fucking cheap in Denmark anyway, so there really wasn’t any need to do so. Not to mention that staying in bed was more appealing at the time.

The boat arrived in Fredrikshavn 7:30, though we waited a while for all the other people to stampede out before us. Luther’s boat was due to arrive 2 hours later, so we walked around Fredrikshavn a bit, trying to find a McDonalds or something so we could eat. Apparently they don’t have such luxury in Fredrikshavn, at least not without a mile of walking, so instead we targeted the train station which was only 10 minutes away from the harbor instead of the 30-40 minute walk we ended up doing. The train station had a waiting room of some sort, along with a basic shop, so we opted to wait for Luther there for the remaining ~1.5 hours. He arrived eventually, pretty much on time, and we walked down to meet him and hurried back as fast as we could, as there was a train we could take that was leaving right away. Ran into some Swedish woman that joined us on our journey with the train.

We took the train for about 1 hour and arrived in Lindholm/Nørresundby, where we were supposed to meet Thanatos, as he was taking another boat that went from Bergen to Hanstholm. From there he would drive and meet us halfway between Hanstholm and Fredrikshavn, in the place we just arrived to. So we try to call Thanatos to check what’s up, but no answer. Luther the hero tries again and he finally answers. Apparently his car got some engine problems and he got stuck somewhere a few kilometers into nowhere. Our initial thought is like “fuck!”. We figured we’d go eat something at some local grill place until we heard back from Thanatos about the car issues. After a bit of waiting the verdict is out: Thanatos’ car engine is fucked beyond recovery, and he actually has to scrap his car completely. That kinda dampened our mood quite a bit, but after some consideration we figured that we’ll just have to get our ass down at far south we can by train and hope that somebody already at the meeting could come and pick us up. I can only imagine how fucking pissed off Thanatos must have been, he was way worse off than we were, after all, not only did he have his bags and stuff with him, but also his computer with the monitor and everything. And he’s stuck way out in nowhere with no immediate transportation available. We kinda felt sorry for him, but at this point there really wasn’t anything we could do to help him, so we just had to make our way down ourselves and wish him the best of luck with his own adventure.

Fortunately we didn’t have to wait too long for a train to come, there was one going to København that would get us pretty far south without having to change trains for a while. 3 or 4 hours later we were in Fredericia, and with some instructions from petsen by phone, we continued further down south with train from Fredericia to Rødekro, where he would be able to pick us up and drive us to Ã…benrÃ¥ where the meeting had already started some hours ago. After maybe an hour or so of waiting petsen finally cruised infront of the train station, and we were on our way. With petsen’s friend’s quick driving it didn’t take us long before we arrived at the bingo hall, maybe at around 19:00. After all the train rides, I think we were all pretty tired when we arrived at the meeting, but it was a nice feeling to finally get there and be able to relax a bit.

enil, petsen and Vandmand did some short introductionary speech/presentation, telling about the program and what was going to happen these next three days. Eventually we settled in, \DC got to use an extra laptop that Kopaka brought along, and Luther tried in vain to get one of petsen’s extra computers working. I wasn’t too keen on a computer myself, I figured I should try a more social approach to this meeting - although I’m not sure how successful that was, so I settled myself behind \DC. After some hours there was a mass gathering towards the pizza place next door, we got some 10% off deal there and I guess most of us ordered something. I split an extra large pizza with \DC, but we had no idea just how large that was going to be, we barely managed to finish half of it. Later in the night I was standing in the hallway when insane guy and Moises were on their way out to smoke some marijuana and asked if I wanted to join in. I’ve wanted to try it out for quite some time, so I gladly accepted. I think Luther joined in on it as well. I didn’t notice any effect at all and was sort of disappointed, but then again it was just a small joint shared between four people, and apparently you might not notice anything the first time you try it out. I can’t really remember much else happening the rest of Friday, I think it was a bit uneventful, at least it was for me. Got a call from Thanatos, he was on his way down with the train, and we managed to sort of some transportation for him. I’m not sure about all the details, but if I remember right he was picked up by Spetzler and they somehow ended up at a club or something. Went to bed at around 03:00, was pretty tired that day from everything that had happened earlier and fell asleep rather quickly.

Woke up 11:00-12:00 I think on Saturday, aching just about everywhere from sleeping on the stone floor in the hallway with only my sleeping bag acting as some sort of matress. Apart from that, I generally felt a bit more fresh and primed for action this day. Thanatos had arrived during the night, so nice to meet him finally. People went out to play soccer, which I didn’t have too much interest in participating in, seeing as there were no showers available and I didn’t feel like going around sweaty all the weekend. I think this was more or less the only time I played any Elma during the meeting, I sat down at enil’s computer and played around a bit on the DEM Cup levels that were released on Friday for an hour or two. After that, the 1 hour totaltime battle started when everybody got back from the soccer game. After pretty much giving up on breathing life into the two computers petsen brought along, Luther managed to borrow MonzterMan’s computer while he went home to sleep. I sat down besides him and watched him play the 1 hour totaltime battle, until he gave up halfway or something and started höyling Uphill Battle. I think I watched him play that for several hours all together, going down from 20.6x to 20.2x or something I believe.

Beer was consumed, and after a while the beer battle was about to start. Although I salute petsen for trying something new with beer battle, it was a really horrible concept which I still don’t quite understand. Instead of the “normal” FEM standard where you play 20 minutes, and have 10 minutes or whatever to drink up before the next battle starts, you had six attempts to finish a level, and if you died you had to take a sip or something. Then if you get beaten later on by somebody else you had to drink as well I think, I can’t really remember any details. Either way, I wasn’t participating so I couldn’t care less. After a while I guess I started to get pretty drunk, as there is a sudden lapse of time half way into the beer battle, where I went out and smoked some hashish, which I’ve also wanted to try out, together with insane guy, Luther and Moises (I guess). I can’t actually remember doing it, but seeing as my next memory is standing behind petsen together with Luther and laughing hysterically at his playing, I guess I did. I remember having a laughter attack, looking at Luther who also started laughing, hence making me laugh even more. Apparently I was a bit rude with my comments to someone, sorry for that, whoever I said it too :P. Later on in the night, the power suddenly went off and they didn’t have the key to the room with the fuse box, so no more Elma that Saturday. I think it helped a bit with the socializing, the next memory I have is sitting in a circle with the other guys in the hallway and talking shit, then eventually standing up and going straight to sleep all of a sudden.

Sunday, woke up god knows when. People started leaving pretty early, and the power didn’t get back on until most of us had left. petsen tried to initiate some cleaning, which took some time to get into effect. After that I guess there was some Family Guy being watched on the big screen and some small talk until it was time to leave. It was quite a puzzle to fit petsen, \DC, Luther, Thanatos, me and petsen’s friend into his car, complete with baggage and computers, it ended up being somewhat crowded you can say. Luckily the trip wasn’t too long, it wasn’t exactly the most comfortable ride in my life. Stopped at some McDonalds half way to eat something, my stomach wasn’t in the best moods this day so I could barely get anything down at all. Then it was off to petsen’s apartment in Ã…rhus, where we were lucky enough to be able to sleep over one day. \DC and Luther were well on their way to getting wasted already, and eventually petsen’s room mate had to go to sleep and we had to be somewhat quiet, something that \DC and Luther had some trouble understanding. I think petsen got pretty frustrated after a while, having to say “shut the fuck up” every minute or so. I guess the night culminated when \DC was going to take a bath and Luther ended up joining him, it was quite a sight seeing them naked together in the bath tub with the rubber ducky.

Some time during the night we all went out to buy some food at a nearby gas station. Now, petsen lives in the most ghetto place I’ve ever seen, so it wasn’t really that much of a surprise that after just a few seconds of getting outside there were some people in a car that tried to start something with us. Luther was quite uncontrollable at this point, so he kind of took the bait when they started saying lots of shit to him, and did his whole want-a-piece-of-me? attitude, but we managed to get him to move along. It wasn’t much more of a surprise that they drove after us and stopped us at every junction they could, luckily nothing happened. The trip back from the gas station to the apartment was quite an adventure as well, it’s hard to put it into words, but to summarize: Luther, drunk, pants down, falling into a bush, ketchup everywhere. Back to the apartment, and petsen tried to get some sleep, with \DC and Luther still not being able to shut up. Eventually everybody went to sleep - or rather Luther finally passed out so it was possible to rest assured that nothing else would happen :P. I tried to sleep on the shorter sofa available, which turned out to be rather impossible, I would probably have woken up with a broken neck if I had fallen asleep there. Couldn’t help but laugh when Luther started snoring quite loudly, and \DC following in his foot steps when Luther inhaled, so they formed a sort of two-toned snoring choir. And that was it for Sunday.

Monday morning, woke up around 11:00. We had checked out some train schedules the night before, and we had a few options, but decided to leave fairly early in order to be sure we catched our boat home. petsen called us a cab, then left us with the key. We left right after him, for a 10-15 minute cab ride down to the train station. Ate some food at a restaurant in the station hall, we had about an hour before our train was leaving. There wasn’t much space on the train, and we ended up in the first class train car without realising it at first. Luckily we managed to hoax the conductor into letting us stay there, it really made the trip a lot better. Had to change trains in… god knows where, no first class car there but at least we found some space. Arrived safely back in Fredrikshavn around 17:30ish, with plenty of time to spare. Gathered some shopping carts that were left behind on the station, put our bagged into those and wheeled our way down to the harbor.

When we arrived to check in and get our tickets, we noticed that Luther’s boat was cancelled, so he got stuck there and had to wait a few more hours before he could get home. Kept him company as long as we could, then went on board and found our cabin. The first on our minds was probably a shower, and what an uplifting and cleansing shower it was. Four days without a shower is really stretching it. An hour or two later, we went to the bar and relaxed a bit with a few beers. After some 8 or 10 my memory is somewhat hazy, I’m not exactly too tolerant with alcohol. Discussed this and that, movies, life and whatnot. Then suddenly I have a memory of ordering some drinks in the bar and telling the bartender to surprise us and ending up pestering him to put more alcohol into them or something. Can’t really remember much more than that from the night. Woke up feeling fairly ok the next day, considering last night’s drinkage. We took a cab to the train station in Oslo where we said good bye to Thanatos, he still had about 7 hours worth of train ride back to Bergen, poor guy. Then followed \DC to the bus terminal and said good bye to him as well, then finally I was on my way home, at last. Right outside my apartment, the alcohol from last night somehow kicked back in and I felt really drunk again, even though that was not the case earlier when waking up. Ended up actually walking straight into a lamp post, which was a bit embarassing with lots of people around. The trip really drained me of energy, even after two days I was still completely exhausted.

That was it basically. It was a nice experience for sure, even considering everything that went wrong with the trip. Huge thanks to petsen for letting us stay at his place, and putting up with \DC and Luther’s mongoing that night. Also a big kiss to the train conductor that let us stay in first class.

Steve came down to my place around 10.00 on Friday morning, we talked a bit about our plans and just listened to some music while we were waiting to leave. Our train was due to leave the station 13.00, which gave us more than plenty of time. We left from my place around 11.30 or so, and headed down to Oslo central station. Decided to eat something at McDonalds before venturing onto our 4.5 hour long train ride. Ran into some drunk friend of Steve at the station, and talked some with him. Drunk before noon, not a bad achievement. Also ran into some old military friend of Steve at the McDonalds, and spent some time talking with him as well. Went into the local super market to buy something to drink on the trip, then onwards to the platforms to wait for the train to arrive.

It’s been insanely fucking hot these last days, and going into the only carriage on the train with no air condition didn’t exactly help anything either. We were sweating like pigs for over an hour untill we decided to try and find some new places in another part of the train, where the air condition was actually working. And holy fuck, was that one of the most delightful experiences we’ve ever had, going from a sauna carriage to a cool and quiet carriage. Altogether our train was incredibly boring, and between the Trollhättan station and Göteborg, we were forced to switch to buses, as they were doing some maintenance work on the railroad tracks. One hour onboard the barely air conditioned bus was sort of a nightmare, but we were able to sleep most of the trip which made it easier to endure.

Then finally we where there, Göteborg central station, where it was even hotter than in Norway. Originally before leaving, I talked with Luther and had decided to call him a bit before we arrived so him and oizo could meet us there, but we completely forgot about it, and decided to chill with a beer at some local bar instead before meeting them. Then completely out of the blue while walking in our own world through the central station, someone we walked past said something like “skint0r?”. What the fuck, talk about unexpected, there they were, somewhat of a shock. After having met both xtC and all the people at FEM before, I wasn’t really too nervous this time, but when it happened so unexpectedly it was truly weird. We went together to the local Systembolaget to buy some beer, Steve and me decided to share one tray (24 beers) of Carlsberg 5.2% 0.5l cans for Friday’s drinking schedule. oizo bought lots of different beers as well. The normal small talk had started, which always is a bit weird at the start, but it didn’t take long to get comfortable with each other so to speak. We took the tram together back to Luther’s place, taking about 10 minutes.

Luther’s place is in some sort of suburbian area, pretty nice location. It only takes 2-3 minutes to walk from the tram station to his place, and woho, we were finally there. Got comfortable and started talking a bit, then after a while we went out to meet and pick up Luther’s girl Karin at the tram station. Quite a hotty she is. Back to the apartment again. Beers were opened and consumed, and after a while we decided to order some pizzas. I already sort of knew this, but my god, are pizzas cheap in Sweden, 40NOK compared to our 200NOK. Steve and me took one pizza each, while Luther and oizo shared one. After calling in the order, it only took like 10 minutes before we headed out to pick them at, a few minutes walk from the apartment. Took out some money at the ATM first, then got the pizzas and walked back again. After not really having eaten anything during the whole day, except some french fries at McDonalds earlier, it was nice with some food.

Later on, rulF came down as well, and even though he was there for almost six hours or something, I still couldn’t find a single picture of him on the camera, we were a bit sloppy with the picture taking to be honest. Don’t really remember everything in order, but Steve eventually got pretty fucked up and passed out on the coach around 02.00. Right after that, xtC called and come over, somewhat drunk as well. Neighbours complained and at one point one of his neighbours were out on the balcony just staring at us, which eventually led to him and xtC arguing, and then I guess he just gave up. Went to bed eventually, on some thin matress with one of the cushions from the coach working as a pillow. Then after a while I got xtC as a bed mate, cozy, but impossibly hot. Like my FEM story, a lot of fun and smaller moments occured of course, but it’s hard to describe everything fully. A lot of those moments includes talking norwegian to the swedes, who not always understands everything, specially those semi internal jokes between Steve and me.

Saturday, Iron Maiden concert closing in rapidly. Steve and Luther, the hardcore drinkers, started as soon as they woke up I think. Karin and xtC went home pretty early, and rulF had already left last night, so it was just Luther, oizo, Steve and me left again. But not far away, Crazy and his friend Pär (not sure about that spelling) were on their way. Luther and somebody else which I don’t remember, went out to meet them at the central station. 30 minutes or so later they were back. After meeting all the elma people at FEM already, it came as no surprise that everybody I met in Sweden were equally nice people. Don’t really remember too much of what went on during Saturday, and I’m tired of writing as well so blah. Iron Maiden songs were played, and some beers were drunk, warming up for the concert later in the day. oizo left first, as he had to give a ticket to one of his friends or something. Then later on around 17.00 Crazy and Pär left because they wanted to catch In Flames, who were one of the two support bands playing before Maiden. Steve and me waited untill the very last moment more or less, as we were only interested in Iron Maiden. I think we left from Luther’s place around 18.00, and decided to take the tram down to Ullevi stadium where the concert was held. As the tram had just left before we arrived, we went down to some local pub/pizzeria thing and asked some Maiden people there about taxi and where to call to get one etc. I call, and I get some message about there being a technical error at the moment, fuck it. We decided to take a beer and just wait for the next tram to arrive, no big deal. Jesus christ, what a place that was. A really local pub where everybody knew each other’s names, you know the type of place. Drank together with the swedish Maiden people there, which was quite fun I must admit. Ooops, another tram missed. Oh well, another beer then. Damn, one more missed, etc. Eventually the swedish people left for the concert, we finished our beer and followed. Things started to get fun at this moment, semi drunk already, but not too much, and talking with random people on the tram about the concert and whatnot. Apparently norwegian people are quite funny to swedes. Got off near Ullevi stadium, still quite some time left for the concert to start, only the first support band had finished playing, In Flames were on next. What to do in the meanwhile I wonder? Beer it was. Went to some extremely crappy place called Persian Palace or something, waited forever to get our beers, and just ended up leaving with the glass and everything because the place sucked so much. Finished our beers while sitting near the river in Göteborg, then went around a bit in the city, tasting the atmosphere. Must have stopped to talk with over 100 people all together during our walk.

Finally it was time, we headed down to the stadium and got ourself inside. Woah. Quite a lot of people there. Bought more beers, which was a true pain in the ass, having to wait in a queue for 20 minutes with people shoving each other every minute, going around like a cattle herd. Sat down to chill with our beer at some empty area with not too much people. 10 minutes later the speakers gave out a recognizable sound, mmm… Back on our feet and pushed our way forward as much as we were able to. And what the fuck, 56.000 people there, and we actually managed to spot oizo standing further ahead, so onwards we went. Then even further and further forward. Eventually Steve and I lost each other, but we weren’t actually more than 5 metres from each other we found out the day after. We were pretty much as far ahead as one could go without a pass which only the few first hundred people or so entering the arena gets. I don’t really have any way of explaining what an experience this was. 56.000 people crammed together, jumping up and down while singing along to Iron Maiden songs, it was so fucking unbelievable. They played great songs one after another, and the mood was so intense. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sweaty in my life, after a while I just got completely euphoric and the concert got better and better every minute.

~2.5 hours later it was all over. I had agreed with Steve before the concert started, to meet with him after the concert around the place we came in. That turned out to be rather impossible, after waiting for 30 minutes there, I just gave up, as did he I think. The beer had really started to kick in at this point, where the hell am I going? I thought I had some idea of which direction I had to go, which turned out to be pretty much as wrong as it gets. I must have asked over 20 different people where the fuck the number one tram was, noone knew of course. After a while I actually managed to find it, but to my luck the last tram had just left 5 minutes ago. What the hell, on to some bar then. Ended up at another crappy place, but couldn’t really care less at this point. Met some other norwegian people there and flashed my visa card quite a few times during the bar visit, should be fun to check my bank account later. Left around 01.30-02.00, and took a taxi back to Luther’s place. I guess at this point I sent some SMS to oizo:

Hihi. Arrived at Luther’s place, greeted by Crazy in the door, everybody had gone to bed already, so did I. At this point I kinda wondered what the hell happened to Steve. His phone broke down before we went to Göteborg, so he didn’t really have any way to contact me or anybody else. Luckily I had told him Luther’s address earlier before we left the concert, and what do you know, around 03.00-04.00 he showed up. Besides the Iron Maiden concert, one of the other big achievements during this trip must be the fact that I’m able to say I’ve been in the same room as Luther while he has had sex.

Woke up pretty groggy on Sunday, partly because of beer, and partly because of sleeping away from home. It’s always impossible to feel truly rested and good when you sleep over at someone else’s place. Crazy and Pär left around 15.00, Steve and myself left around 16.30. Truly greatful to Luther for letting us stay at his place, it certainly took our cost of the trip down when we didn’t have to spend the nights at some hotel. It was great to meet everybody as well, certainly a trip to remember in the same way as FEM. Steve got pretty drunk again this day, I think the conductor on the train got a bit tired of us. Had a lot of fun on the train trip back home for a change, it was hard not to start talking swedish for some reason. Then finally home at 22.00, ah. Big thanks to Tomas, Peter, Johan, Pär, Mikael, Karin and Andreas for a great trip worth remembering! Much obliged.

Pictures!

Got some trouble with my site right before leaving for FEM05, apparently there had been some backdoor script installed because of a vulnerable php script I had, not too sure exactly. My account was suspended for a few days, but now it’s back again.

Now for the FEM05 story, where to start? Quite an adventure it was. This isn’t really a too detailed story, it’s hard to write about every funny thing that happened, and just how cool it was to be there. It’s more like a very small summary of what happened each day (although not sure how exact all the information is, should have written something after each day to remember it better). Take every fact with a grain of salt. This is not intended as some “complete” FEM story or anything.

Saturday the 11th
Cubein drove from Stavanger to Skien to pick up xp, they then drove down here to Oslo. Got a call from them around 20.00 or so, and tried to explain where they should go. Not too easy, seeing as my general street and road knowledge in Oslo is near zero, specially when it comes to driving. Agreed to meet them at a nearby park, raced down there as fast as I could. A bit less nervousness than expected. Said hello and all that, got in the car, then we drove back to my place. Both of them were pretty easy going and nice guys, we sat around a bit playing Elma on my two computers. After a while we went out and grabbed something to eat at a nearby McDonalds. Went back to my place again, and played more Elma. Had some small battle at one of the best levels ever made, cubein5.lev, which xp won eventually. Cubein and xp höyled some WCup, but never got any times to send in the end. Went to bed around 03.00.

Sunday the 12th
Woke up around 10-11, took a shower and got all my stuff ready for departure. We took off a bit before noon, heading to Stockholm where we were going to catch the ~20.00 boat going to Turku. Not too much to say about the trip to Stockholm really. Some talking and discussing mostly. Came across a store with a sign that said “El-ma norge”, which was sort of amusing. Arrived in Stockholm more or less right on time, perfectly “planned”. Found our cabin on the boat, went around a bit, then headed to the tax-free shop to buy beer (Tuborg of course, except xp who is a poser and bought Carlsberg). Headed up to the “Fun Club” later in the night, had a beer, and Cubein played some black jack (and lost). Went to bed quite early, we had to get up around 07.00 the next day after all.

Monday the 13th
Woo, this is the day where it gets serious. Started driving from Turku around 08.00, towards Tampere where we did a small stop at a super market type place. Then headed to Jyväskylä and stopped there to do some more serious grocery shopping, stocking up on food and snacks. Then we were on our way to the FEM cottage, which tooke quite a while to figure out the location of. Got there eventually, and the nerves started building up as we approached the cottage. It was quite unreal to finally shake hands with people that you’ve talked to only on IRC for so long. There were already some 8-10 people there, and I believe MIF, px, terb0 and BarTek were the first ones that greeted us when we arrived. Started to bring our computers upstairs and meet the others that were already there. It was hard to really start talking with anyone fully, but at least terb0 and px were helpful with trying to start conversations and speaking english. The one thing I think I (and probably others) remembers most from the first day, is Jeppe and his drinking. He arrived together with Abula and Juzam (I think?) already drunk, and continued to drink from his vodka bottle as the day went on. I remember at one point when I was talking with Cubein, Jeppe stands next to us and Cubein tells him to take a sip from the bottle and tells him jokingly like “aren’t you going to finish that?”. Jeppe takes more or less the rest of the bottle in one sip, and we’re talking some ~2-3dl of vodka here. Needless to say, Jeppe got pretty fucked up Monday, with some amusing situations ensuing from it. I think I’ll keep those to myself and other FEM people (a lesson; be there next year if you want to know everything that goes on). Eventually Jalli and TorInge showed up, nice to meet those guys. One thing is clear, TorInge is one sick dude! At one point he started to ask sort of random people to take multi wrs with him, and it didn’t really take more than 5-10mins for each to be broken. I think the first one was Pipe together with Cubein. Even I tried once together with TorInge on Steep Corner, where I fucked up a lot of run (he’s quite a patient guy as well I must say). Luckily around the fifth try, I managed to hold still at the flower, and it was also TorInge’s best attempt, WR it was. It wasn’t really that satisfactory, after all, Toringe did all the hard stuff. Fun experience anyway though.

Tuesday the 14th
Started to get a bit more settled in by now, but it still felt a bit awkward being there. The remaining guys showed up this day - MP, Orcc and Jokke. And also a surprise visit from onlainari, which was very cool. Played some Virtual Pool 3 together with him and talking a little bit. Don’t have any significent memories from this day really.

Wednesday the 15th
GAA award prizes were presented, quite fun. onlainari had to leave unfortunately. Blah, blah, this and that. I’m starting to get tired of writing.

Thursday the 16th
This is kinda the first day when I really got talking to people. Had quite a few beers, grilled some and talked to the other people there. Just a nice chill day with little playing and lots of socializing. And, for the the first time in my life, I tried the sauna. Very positive experience, and not at all like I expected it to be. Wasn’t really too much of a problem staying in there for long.

Friday the 17th
Started the day with driving to the nearby super market together with Cubein, xp and MIF. I knew from oizo that swedes jokingly thought that we say guleböj (yellow bend) instead of banana in Norway. The funny thing was when MIF asked if we really do, I think he seriously thought it was true. Cubein, never having heard about it before, started laughing quite hysterically of that. Mmm.. beer battle day. This, together with Thursday, were definitely the best and coolest days overall. onlainari came back again, cool. My biggest achievement in my career is easily the one beer battle win that I got. After 10 events or so, it was more about actually finishing the level for me. After finishing there wasn’t any time to höyl as I had to finish my beer instead. Didn’t do too good in the later events, but at least I finished all of them and ended up on 5th or 6th place (?). Have vague memory of sitting on MP’s lap caressing him with Juzam sitting on my lap, rest of the night is kind of blurry. There might have been some sauna involved as well.

Saturday the 18th
Woke up without any trace of a hangover surprisingly, maybe the sauna helped? Stomach was a different matter however, felt queezy for quite some hours. I think Saturday was another chill day in general.

Sunday the 19th
Sad day, time to leave. Woke up around noon, hurried to get our stuff together as we had some way to drive, and also a boat to catch. We ended up having way too much time, but at least better than missing the boat. Ate at some grill place in Turku and sat around at some church place, where lots of swedish drunk people had gathered as well. Bought 1 litre Finlandia lime, 50cl Malibu white rum and 50cl Sourz apple on the boat. Early night today as well, had to get up 6.30 the next day.

Monday the 20th
We were waken up by the cleaning guy, asking if we weren’t planning to get off. We were kinda wtf? The clock was quite late, we hurried and packed our stuff, went down to the car deck, to see it completely empty. We were so late they had moved our car out of the boat in some unknown way. Got to Oslo around 15.00, what a relief it was getting back home to internet and all that.

General thoughts
Sorry for the somewhat boring story, I know from last year personally how much you wanted to read about all the funny events and see pictures and everything. Once you’ve been there yourself it’s not that exciting writing about it. But, take my word for it, it’s worth going. Very worth going. Everybody I met were nice people. There were some that I got a better impression of than others though. Cubein and xp were the one I talked the most to (”obviously”), and besides those I can say that terb0 is one funny and nice guy. I think he helped quite a bit with the transition between the norwegian/swedish and finnish people, trying to speak english as much as possible. MP was extremely cutypants, outgoing and funny. And last, but not least, Juzam deserves a worthy mention. He was a really, really nice, friendly and cool guy. Wish I had talked some more to different people though. A great week it was.

Ordered a game yesterday, Trackmania Sunrise. Saw Cubein playing it a lot during FEM, and tried it myself a bit there, and decided it was one of those games actually worth buying.

Finally home from the trip, and what a trip it was, phew. Hmm, where to start? Steve came down to my place on Saturday around 16.00, then we went together down to Alex and Fredrik’s place and hung around for a while. Karen eventually came down, time passed, and oops, perhaps we should have left already? Hurried down to the dock, and barely made it in time. Met Vidar and Janken there, Janken was that unknown guy that Karen brought along for the trip. So we were seven in total, with two cabins. Janken, Karen and Steve took one of them, while Alex, Fredrik, Vidar and myself took the other one. Made ourselves at home and relaxed for an hour or so, then went to the tax free shop to buy alcohol and the likes. Vikingfjord vodka and loads of Battery was purchased. Went to some place and ate, then headed back to our cabin to start drinking. Janken, Karen and Steve joined us.

Vodka and Battery was mixed and drank. It didn’t take long to get the mood up. Return was the first band playing that we were going to see, so we went up to the concert area just in time. Vodka and battery was ordered, and this is where my memory ends. Woke up around noon today, surprisingly with no hangover and in good health, except for my right index finger. I have no idea what happened, but it’s incredibly sore when I move it around. Hopefully it will heal itself, right now it’s very hard and painful to play Elma. It’s very hard to properly explain everything that happened on the trip, there were so many funny moments I wish I could write about. But back to waking up. Hmm, what are these potato chips doing on the floor? Oh, it was potato chips vomit. What idiot puked on our floor? Oops, apparently it was me. Who the hell drank up half of my Vikin
fjord bottle? Oh, that was me too. I took a shower, still feeling kinda tipsy. I don’t really remember this morning to well either. Our cabin looked so incredibly shitty, a big portion of it because of my vomit.

Information about last night’s events was gathered. Apparently I was very enthusiastic at the Return concert, waving along with the songs with a beer in my hand, and pissed off people by spilling it on everybody in nearby radius. After that I’m not sure what happened. We were supposed to see Stage Dolls after Return, but if we did or not, I don’t know. So all in all, I didn’t really get to see much of the concerts. That was a bit stupid, but oh well. It was an enjoyable trip nonetheless.

Then today, as I walked over to Karen and Janken outside on the sun deck, suddenly he asked something like this: “Hm, are you skint by any chance?”. What the fuck? Janken was Totalnewbie! So there we were, been together for a whole day without knowing it was him. I wasn’t really in the best mood today, so didn’t talk too much with him unfortunately. I started to feel a bit queasy from last night, and stayed a bit negative and to myself throughout the day. I don’t think he got a very positive image of me. I sat outside on the sun deck most of the day listening to my iPod. That should sum up the trip in brief.

Bought the new Gillette M3 Power razor on Ebay a couple of days ago, and I really recommend it. That vibrating thing isn’t just some gimmick to try and milk money from people, at least not just that. It actually makes a difference.

Last year I found out that a girl that I went to class with for some 4-6 years had been in some porn movies. She entered into Miss Norway, and they found out about them and kicked her out from the contest. After that happened, she has gotten max publicity, and she’s now a very famous model here. It’s weird. And really nasty watching her in those porn movies, which includes: “Just Over Eighteen 5″ and “Throat Gaggers 3″. Haha. Today she is going into the Big Brother house as a contestant.

Last two weeks has been the same old shit, only more stressful than usual at work. It’s weird how the smallest things, added up, will completely ruin my week or month or whatever. Stuff like getting some job with a deadline that I’ll dread to even start working on, getting a letter about dentist appointment, not having enough money to buy this and that, etc.. Really trivial stuff. At first it’s just a bit frustrating, then when it starts to pile up with stuff I’m not looking forward to do I feel more and more clutched, weary and generally unenergetic.

Luckily there was at least one positive event this week, got to meet xtC (as most of you who reads this - if any, know him already I’ll refrain from explaining who he is). His mom lives practically right next to me, and he travelled here from Sweden to work a bit while staying at his mom’s place, so it was a nice oppertunity to meet. Was originally going to meet him on friday, but he was sick or something so we scheduled for me to call him on saturday instead, where I probably spent a good 5 minutes just working up the nerve to press the call button on my phone. After some awkward misunderstandings because of my norwegian we settled for english and arranged to meet up 20:00 at a nearby Narvesen, armed with a pack of beer. Went out and stood there waiting a bit, looking nervously around to see if I could recognize him from the crowd, then got a call from him saying “watefak where are you?”, “outside the narvesen, you?”, “i’m also outside narvesen”, “ugh k”. Then I managed to realize where he was, as there are two Narvesen right next to each other at the station. Started walking up to it, then I saw a very distinguishable character among the crowd and said hello. Then started the somewhat forced small talk while walking to my friend Fredrik’s place, where we met up with him, Steve and Vidar to drink some beers before going out later on.

After awhile we eventually headed out, decided to start off with a trip to the infamous Tranen, where Arnie Skiffle Joe plays each friday and saturday. For those of you who don’t know him, you just have to experience him, words can’t really describe this amazing show. I even won a signed cassette tape by him, wohoo. After the show was over we journeyed further into the heart of Oslo, and stopped by Møllers quickly, then went over to Elm Street where we spent the remainder of the night before Fredrik, Steve and Vidar managed to get kicked out. They left before xtC and me figured out what happened, so we started walking home on our own. We ended up at his place, where he invited me in since his mom was working the nighshift. Just chilled and watched some C.S.I. episodes before I left around 5:30 or so.

It was weird meeting him, eventhough I’ve met people from the internet before, this was the first time it was somebody Elma related, and a guy :X. It was however a very positive experience, he was a really great, funny and friendly guy. I think it has at least made me a bit less nervous about going to FEM05 and meeting so many people, it has probably only strengthened my determination about going there. He said something about calling me later today after work, so I might meet him again at my place. Since he has no computer at his own place he must be very bored during the day.

After watching the Metallica documentary I got this urge to download all their old albums again. I’ve never really been a big fan of them, I’ve only liked a few of their most known songs and left it at that, and never taken the time to listen to a full album. And now I’ve fallen in love with them, everything they made before Load is really amazing. It’s pretty cliche to “identify” with lyrics, and it’s something I never really think of normally, but the chorus part in The Unforgiven somewhat reflects how I feel about my life.