SnowCrash

2007-05-05T13:31:00.000-04:00

Check it: http://blog.waywarddiamonds.com/

2006-01-25T08:07:00.000-05:00

So it's been almost a year.

I'm not really coming out of blogbernation, but there's this think called "clocking" going around, so I figure I'd take part.

7 things which I want to do before I die:
1. Find the love of my life and make a family of my own
2-7. Everything else is pretty much fleeting and doesn't really matter that much. I could say things like "skydiving", or "learn another language", and those things would be fun, but far from necessary for me to be happy.
7 things I can do:
1. Create music
2. Write
3. See the big picture
4. Annoy people (myself included)
5. Learn something new really fast
6. Get along with almost anybody
7. Empathize
7 things I can't do(or am very bad at):
1. Schedule, organize, keep things straight
2. Find my significant other
3. Find any sort of direction in life
4. Keep my focus consistently
5. Deal with ignorant, biased, people.
6. Live far away from loved ones
7. Stop myself from falling into temporary depression every now and then
7 famous people that fascinate me:
1. DaVinci, simply because he could sleep for 15 minutes every hour instead of 8 hours a night.
2.-7. dunno
7 things that intrigue me in other people:
1. How people can get hung up on something 100% inconsequential.
2. How short-sighted and narrow-minded many otherwise intelligent people can be.
3. How another person can make my heart melt.
7 sentences or words which I frequently use:
1. Sæll
2. Bah
3. Ertekkagrínast
4. vottðef0kk
5. theoretically...
6. I read somewhere that...
7. dísus

And finally:
I have a feeling that I know or understand something that nobody else knows or can understand. I merely have yet to discover it.

2005-05-25T16:04:00.000-04:00

Today's topic is Music and Age.

I recently applied to my old music school to start my singing studies formally (been taking private lessons). I was accepted with no problems. However, 5
other guys were not. The reason? They were too old.
It had nothing to do with their background, their proficiency, or money. They
were simply too old.
This struck me as a little odd, so I did some digging around. Apparantly it
has to do with the fact that music schools here are supported by the City. So
they don't want to support older people. Fine. Allow them to apply anyway,
just make them pay full price.
But no, that's not allowed in Iceland, because everything is supposed to cost
the same for everybody. So music school for the older people costs the same,
they just can't buy it.
Hmm, anyone else see a double standard here?

So anyway, these people are told pleasantly to go apply to the music college,
where (I gather) there is no age bias. Problem is, when they go there, they
are told they do not have enough background to be admitted. Where can they get
the appropriate background? Why, in the original school, the one with the age
bias, remember?
Catch-22
When people raise their voice about this blatant discrimination they are either
told "go take private lessons" or "what the hell do you want to start learning
music for at your age? You should be ashamed!". Let's discuss the issues those
2 comments raise.

Private lessons are fine. However, they do not replace a full music education.
You do not explicitly study the literature surrounding your instrument. You
do not partake in any group activities. You do not get to absorb the culture
surrounding your instrument and its relatives. You do not get to meet other
people who play your (and other) instruments, and do not get to play with them.
These aspects of music education are collectively MUCH more important than
private lessons.

Now we come to an issue which I feel is so absurd it borders on being absolute
gibberish: the bias people instinctively have towards grownup beginners. This
is apparent in many other fields, I'm sure, but I want to talk about music.

Let's take an example:You go to a concert at a music school, let's say a young relative of yours is
playing. He plays well for his age (maybe only 10) and you are proud.
Following him is a 50 year old man, playing the same instrument, and does so
better than your relative, but still only at a beginner's level. What is your
immediate response?
Disdain, disgust, embarrasment, shock, etc.
For some unexplainable reason, people think there is something "dirty" about
this situation. "I mean for god's sake! This guy MUST have some ulterior motive, right?
Nobody in their right mind would begin music studies at the age of 50, let
alone put themselves in a position of ridicule like that, would they? I say
he's a child molester, let's ostracize him."

People, get your heads out of your asses.

Whoever said learning is only for the young? I have had people (whom I
otherwise consider enlightened) answer this with "of course it's not just for
the young. But those older people shouldn't show themselves like that, and
they definitely shouldn't be playing with the children. I don't care if they
study music, as long as they keep it to themselves." This sounds like someone trying to be liberal about something he thinks is vile and despicable. "I don't care if that person takes part in domination games in the bedroom as long as he keeps it to himself."

This is plain and simple, unfounded discrimination. There is no "grey" about
this matter, it is quite black-and-white. Just imagine what would happen if
someone were to act as shocked when seeing a person of a different skin color
studying music; or a different gender. Hmm, are we back in the 19th century
yet?

A final note: whether or not you have the potential for music proficiency at ANY age, has nothing to do with this argument. I will discuss that in a future post

2005-04-27T11:29:00.000-04:00

So what is it with everyone's obsession with "finishing" things?

Actually, wrong question. The right one is:

So what is it with people who can't (or won't) get started on something if they realize that it can't (or most likely can't) ever be finished? Why is "finishing" something necessarily the high point of a project? I mean, how many people go on a vacation and wait for it to be over with crazed anticipation?
In my mind, the actual "doing" of things is what is important. As some wise man said "it's not the destination, it's the journey" (paraphrased by Freysi). I have never really finished anything I've ever written (with the exception of that one short story, but that's not really finished, need to fix it up). If I all of a sudden started thinking "what's the point of me writing at all? I never finish things" or "ok THIS time I'm gonna finish this story" (causing me to become more and more bitter as I impose this deadline on myself and never fulfil it), then I would probably never write anything ever again. Which would be a terrible loss for me, because I so enjoy writing. And when I'm writing, the only stuff going through my head are things directly related to my writing, not worries about when it will be done, how much I have left, or whether I will ever finish it.
I think those kind of thoughts are destructive, which is one reason why I don't want to make any passion of mine my daily work.

Books, movies, TV shows, they're different. Oftentimes I'll sit through something I don't necessarily enjoy very much, if only for the sense of completeness I get at the end. But that is so different from a personal project. In media, you are taking part in a prewritten story, which is written in a way to make you want to see more, to find out what really happens. In real life, there ain't nuthin' written before hand. So the fun is in the "writing", not the completing.

Let's say, for sake of argument, that you could download the memory of having written a bestselling novel straight into your brain. You know have the memory of all that hard work and the sense of completeness after having published it. But you never really experienced it. How many of you have ever wished you could relive some moment, or some period in your life? *raises a hand* It's the experience that counts, not some self-imposed feeling of satisfaction after completing something. It basically boils down to this:

Who cares what you do as long as you're having fun?

I have this feeling that some people force themselves to stop having fun and pretend that it's important to have a "reality check" and reassess the situation. Example:
Programmer A and B have good jobs and good job security. They both start working on a project in their free time and spend every waking moment on it. They both have lots of fun. However, they both realize that this is probably something which will never be completed; which they will never get any recognition for. Programmer A takes that thought and trashes it, he doesn't care, he's having fun. He'll stop this project once he stops having fun. Programmer B takes that thought and considers it carefully, realizing the truth behind it and scraps the project. Thus the project is no longer bringing him enjoyment.

Now which makes more sense to you? I think the key word in there is recognition. Some people feel the constant need to be patted on the back for what they do, and thus are not able to glean enjoyment from anything they do not finish.

Bah. Anyway, just me ranting, dunno where I wanted to go with that.

2005-04-25T13:48:00.000-04:00

I've been sitting around for a while, twiddling my thumbs when I thought "Hey, why don't I go ahead and blog?" Been a while.
Couple of notable things have happened recently:
- Moved into the new house with mamma and pabbi; me own little apartment.
- Bought a car
- Got my payraise
- Set my apartment on fire

Apart from that, I've just been enjoying myself, playing video games and just hanging around :)

I'm almost back into my apartment, they managed to clean everything and I'm still waiting for the carpenter to come and replace the floor in my bedroom, then it's just out to buy a new bed and move back in. There's still a strong smell here though, not smoke but from the cleaning stuff they used.

Anyway, I'm not sure whether I'll continue updating this blog. I originally thought of it as a way to keep people back home updated on what was going on while I was in the states. Now that I'm home....maybe I'll just post on Los Otros. We'll see.

2004-12-10T04:48:00.000-05:00

Ok, I wrote this about a week ago, but blogger has been acting up, so here goes again....

Hey guys.Well, a lot has happened since last time, biggest news of course that I've moved home. And by that I mean HOME; back in my old room at my parents' house. It's a temporary situation, but it's just fine for me. People have been telling me "good LORD Freysi, don't move back home with your parents", but I really don't see what's the problem with that. I mean, as long as one's life is separate and one pays rent, what's the difference?For example, m&p bought this great new house (which they haven't yet moved into) which has an apartment on the ground floor. At this point it is very likely that I will move into this apartment when they move there and pay them rent. It definitely will be different from now, since I will have my own kitchen and washroom, but I'll still be in my parents' basement.So anyway, got my computer back together finally (thanks for sending my mobo Freyja, I'll figure out how to repay you :) ), and I'm slowly but surely re-establishing my presence as a trumpet player around here. I have a job now, working as an "engineer" (fancy name for a programmer) at a company specializing in DNS software. Apparently they are some hot shit in the business world today, making deals with companies like Nokia, British Telecom and Microsoft. It's interesting stuff, the place is nice (it's an old Icelandic townhouse that has been renovated. The sales department resides in what was once the manure house), and the people are crazy. The salary is decent enough for someone with no real experience in the industry, only those 2 summers at Kögun, but in three months' time, they will reevaluate my performance and we will renegotiate a contract. I expect a significant raise at that point.I'm also planning all sorts of other stuff. I'm looking at the possibility of completing my MS degree here alongside work, or maybe taking something completely different, like business or psychology, maybe even back into music, composing or something. On the hobby side I am going to take singing lessons and am working on setting them up now. I'd also love to learn how to play the drums. As a direct result of this new work I've rekindled my interest in networking and once I finally move I am going to get a couple old computers and fool around with them. I am also going to set up one computer with some music software, get myself a decent keyboard and a mike and attempt to write some music. And finally, I'm going to get back into shape.So lots of stuff going on. Apart from my hobbies I have a bunch of stuff I need/want to buy, which shouldn't be a problem now that I'm making money :). A car, a real stereo system, a real TV or maybe just a projector, a real phone, and of course, a playstation 2. Ahh the necessities in life.By the way, I will keep this blog in english since I still have a handful of american readers.

2004-11-09T05:45:00.000-05:00

It's always funny how certain things pop up into your mind fully formed, as if your mind has been working on them without telling you about it. In fact, that's pretty much what happens. You think consciously about something, like "Hunh, that X is weird", then forget about it, but your mind does not forget. Then 2 months later, when you're on the toilet, you go "Oh yeah! That's what X is about." This happened to me just the other day, albeit not on the toilet. No, while I was in the groggy, half-comatose state I'm in early in the morning I all of sudden realized why I don't enjoy research in an institution such as UMD.
The important point here is that it's not that I don't enjoy research, it's that I don't enjoy it under the circumstances which I found myself the past year. I have many, many ideas which could easily become a full doctoral thesis, and new ones are born each day. I would love the chance to work on all of them, however - and this is what I realized - I want to work on them on MY terms. Even though the professors were not pushing me in any way, in fact were very laid back, I was still working under their terms and their schedule. So I can see myself being very happy getting some job and then spending my free time working on my own personal research stuff. This line of thinking ties directly into a philosophy I have now discussed with many people, and not yet come to any conclusion.The world today seems to be oriented in such a way to allow young people to "follow their goals". Parents (and others) encourage their children to "follow their heart" and to learn what they want to learn, the future be damned. I have read many many articles comparing people who went after "the money" and people who followed "their passion". Each time, the people who followed their passion are portrayed as having the obvious upper hand, both in salary (money follows passion) and in general wellness of being. However, in addition to this their is an ever increasing rate of divorce throughout the world and people are having children later and later; the "fundamental" family structure is changing. So I started looking around myself, comparing my family to many others I know.
Of all my close friends who are not musicians, I am the only one who has a "normal" family, i.e. parents are still together. (All my musician friends also do, but that is an unrelated, albeit interesting fact). My family is great, we always have lots of fun when we get together, and my friends who come over invariable like us. But we're the exception.What if - in light of the fact that people follow their passion for work - the enthusiasm people have for work is having this effect on the family structure? I want to take my pabbi as an example, even though our family has (thankfully) not followed this path of breaking up.
Pabbi works hard every day, and loves his job and is good at it. It's something he can focus all his efforts into and it has meaning for him. He comes home in the evening and almost always takes care of dinner as well. Then he poops out in front of the TV, often times doing some extra paperwork on his laptop at the same time. For the longest time, when I was younger, I didn't really understand the "pooping out" part. I always thought, "why doesn't he do something; something he enjoys outside his work?" Then I got my own job one summer, working as a computer programmer/designer. I'd work hard, on challenging things, programming fiercly, debugging, walking around, talking to people, debating my points and affecting the design of a multibillion dollar program. (yesyes, I'm gloating a little). Then I'd come home and poop out.
I realized that working all day on something which you can really pour all your effort into is exhausting. Even if I don't move a muscle all day, apart from typing and using the mouse, I'd be absolutely drained when I came home. Which I didn't like, because I had so many other things that I wanted to do, to work on. So that got me thinking...
Why spend my passion on my work? Why not save my passion for things I wanted to do on my own terms? People say, "To have a passion which you can get paid for is heavenly." I say, "to have a passion which you do get paid for is hell, for in the end, it will destroy your passion." Why not go do some work every day which is not too draining, physically or mentally, and then spend the rest of the day (with your extra energy) on things which you love; which you would really like to spend time on. And for those people who like to work out and want to stay in great shape, get a physically demanding job. Then you don't have to spend precious hours of your free time working out, plus you save the cost of paying for a gym. Let's say for example, your passion gives you 300.000 kr ($4,000+) a month, and the physically demanding alternative 170.000($2,500). Let's also assume you live alone. So after a workday with your passion you come home and are exhausted. More often than not you'll order in. You'll have high hopes of getting into shape, and pay for a gym. More often than not, you won't go. So you start to get fat, and depressed, and spend money on stuff to make you happy, etc. On the other hand, after a workday in the physically demanding alternative you come home and even though your body is tired, you have not spent any mental energy and have been spending the dull moments of your day pondering things to work on. You come home eager to try out the stuff you came up with today, to solidify the ideas. You don't have to worry about getting into shape, the job is doing it for you. You are getting paid to look good. As an effect of that, you eat better, you have more energy to do stuff, and generally feel better. Yes, you have less money, but as long as you get by and are happy, that's beside the point, right?
So these examples might be a bit extreme, and there are people who don't fit into either category, my pabbi one of them. He is in the former, but is in fact very happy with his life, even though he is tired after a day's work. However, my point still remains. Whether or not this is something that I'm seriously considering...I still haven't made up my mind on that. I probably need to experience more than just a summer's worth of full time work to figure that out. It seems to be such a different way of thinking, such a radical change from what we know, but also makes perfect sense to me. Anyway, it'll be in the back of my mind over the next few years. We'll see what happens.
As for real-life news, I'm coming home on Thursday, wheee!
Actually I land on Friday morning, but for me, it's only 2.60791 days til my plane leaves. I've been slowly but surely packing (too...much...stuff O_O ), and giving stuff away (the biggest, and most happy recipient being my trashcan). I already have on job interview. They wanted to meet me on Friday, but I said no way, so Monday it is. So anyway, I still have my old phonenumber if anybody wants to reach me over the weekend. I'll definitely be in touch with as many as I can.

2004-10-29T17:33:00.000-04:00

I'm baaaack.
So my trip around New England was fun. Started out by going to Boston to stay with Stulli and Sissa.
So lets see...straight description of what I did, when, and with whom, followed by an anlysis of my reaction and feelings toward Boston, how's that sound?
First off, the ride to Boston was looong, like almost 9 hours (with a half hour stop in NY). Got into town a little earlier than I'd said cause I caught an earlier bus, so I ended up sitting on Stulli's front step for about an hour or so. The thing is, I've gotten so used to me being late for stuff that I have forced myself to be ready earlier. So I'd look at the timing schedules, figure out when I'd need to leave, when I'd need to wake up and such, and then set my clock for an hour earlier than that, just in case everything goes wrong. So nothing went wrong and I was at the bus station 2 hours before I should have been. The ticket lady was nice enough to just change my ticket so I could catch the next bus instead.
Anyway, Stulli and Sissa come home and we go immediately to a party with some of their musician friends. Nice people, very different from the people I've gotten to know here in DC. More on that later...Day after that was spent lounging around, and watching game 3 of the Red Sox VS Yankees. Stulli had to wake up early on sunday morning to go to some studio. I decided to tag along. This was one of those "studio-in-a-barnhouse" studios, way out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a white picket fence, a bunch of huge slightly hilly meadows, and a lake. Pretty surreal. So while Stulli was recording, I was going to go for a walk. I didn't. Instead I slept in the car. But it was still interesting.
The rest of my week with them was spent going to visit music schools, going out to eat, and watching the Red Sox beat the Yankees. For game 7 we actually went downtown to a sports bar, watched the game with all the bostonian neanderthal sports-types and their girlfriends, and the other fascinated, non-sports types like us, not really there for the sports, but for the spectacle invariably surrounding the sports. As the Sox slowly but surely beat back the Yankees, the bar became louder and louder, at moments becoming completely deafening, for example when Some Dude hit a home run while the bases were loaded, also known as a Grand Slam. Once the Sox actually won the game, the whole scene erupted in screaming, jumping, and generally hysterical people, pounding each other's open palms, proving to me that even in a heightened sense of sports-induced fervor, their social boundaries were so ingrained as to stay intact. In Iceland, if we were to win the Swedes in handball (our own little rivalry with a curse), and you were at a bar downtown with loads of drunk people, the person next to you would be liable to picking you up and swinging you around in glee and then tossing you to the next person to do the same.
Outside, the scene was just as crazy, the streets absolutely stuffed with people shouting, cheering and generally very happy. The police had an obvious but as of yet, neutral presence. The actual size of it was not the most interesting thing to me. I've been in crowds of this size before, even larger. No, it was the way the crowd acted which interested me. I am of course cursed with only being able to compare things in the US to things I know, being Icelandic mostly and to a small degree European. So I will compare this crowd to a Icelandic/European crowd.
The most striking thing is the lack of physical contact. In a crowd this huge, and after such a significant event (for those of you who didn't know, this is an 86 year old feud with the yankees, otherwise know as The Evil Empire, by the Rebel Bostonians), normally you'd (I'd) expect to be jostled, bumped into, toe-trodden, and in general, tossed around by the waves of movement as the people comprising the crowd tried to combine movements of joy with movements of trying-to-stay-the-hell-on-my-feet. In fact, this did not happen at all. Once in a while someone would bump into you, but in the most part, you'd have this bubble around you. Granted only about half an inch thick, but still there. Sure you'd bump into people and touch them while trying to get past, but definitely not the suffocating closeness apparent in places like Roskilde. It was as if every person had like a tiny, yet significant negative magnetic charge.
So anyway, people start to climb up stuff and stand on ledges doing some stupid dance (don't know what that's about) and then we decided to head home, since nothing was really happening, people just seemed to be there to wait for something TO happen. Pretty much as soon as we left, people started to break stuff.
What the hell is that all about?
You guys just won your little curse thingy, you're supposed to be happy. Go home and have crazy sex, don't go and break some stupid plastic sign. I mean, come on! I was not impressed. It seemed the whole point of this get together was twofold, one to go and have fun. Most normal people realized that this would only last for about half an hour, or until number two - starting a riot - happened. I also saw this after UMD won that basketball game last year. Students all went downtown, not really to celebrate, but to wait for the police to show up in their riot gear and for some nutters to burn something and then get taken down by the police. I guess they get some kind of kick out of it, because they stand there and hang around, all the way until the police see the need to start to get rough, and then everybody would make like a lemming and run away. To me it sounds like sick entertainment, spawned by a culture chock full of jaded young people who are totally bored with violence on tv, so why not make some of their own. But it's harmless because "they're celebrating" and they can blame it all on police brutality and thus excuse it in their own pitiful minds.
Sigh.
Anyway, the reason I got so indignant about this is because a girl died. The police used plastic bullets to subdue some of the rioters (who are almost always college students), and one of the bullets ricocheted and hit a non-violent student in the eye, killing her. That pretty much made me NEVER want to go to a post-sports "celebration" in the US EVER again, nor would I want anyone I know to go.
After all that Stulli and Sissa rented a car and we drove up to Vermont. They were going to stay in some farm, Stulli's grandfather owned, and I got a ride to Hildur's place out in the middle of nowhere. Those 2+ days were really quite nice, just hanging out, playing scrabble, watching tv, fooling around with instruments and such. On saturday we went to a fundraising dinner at the local church, thanksgiving style food, pretty good. Interesting gettogether, the kind where everybody knows everybody and such. Apparently, right before we got there, J.D.Salinger was there. After that we went to Hildur's friends' house, sat around and Bushwhacked (general term for a conversation centered around how much of a dipshit Bush is) for a while.
Sunday, Hildur and I went up to visit Dori, one of Hildur's ex-girlfriends. She owns some land way up north in Vermont, totally wooded, mountainous area, and she needed some help getting this lawnmower started. Well...lawnmower might not be the right term. How about something like Destroyer of Small Trees, or The Shredder of Shrubbery (bring us a shrubbery!). It was frankenmower, this crazy thing which literally could mow down small trees, but it was still pretty much the size of a normal hand-pushed mower...with a huge motor on top...and a choke...and 4 gears. So we cleared a 10,000 foot wide area underneath her apple tree orchard, which had become overgrown with small trees (ergo the destroyer of small trees. Seriously folks, the manual says it can cut reliably through trees/branches with a diameter of 2 inches. That's like, your ARM for example).
Adventure follows adventure, so we turned of the crazy mower, jumped into a huge pickup truck, and headed high into her land, saying things like "Is that the road? Oh wait, it's there." and then just driving through some underbrush and trees. Seriously, I think there never was any road, we were just lucky. Nah just kidding, but that road was pretty tight. In fact, at one point, where we had to turn around, we actually got quite firmly stuck. Of course, this being the far north-east of the US, everybody who's anybody has a chainsaw. Those trees hemming us in sure regretting growing where they had..er..grown.
Grabbed a train to New York, where I stayed for the next 4 days with my cousin Peter and his girlfriend Courtney. They were mostly busy while I was there so I just roamed around the city, doing touristy things. Went the the Empire State building, tried twice to get to the Statue of Liberty but it was sold out both times. Public Library, Times Square, Grand Central Station, Central Park, I even walked like about half the length of Broadway. I probably walked over 15 miles in NY. We went out to eat once, and peter and I went out to a couple bars the last night. It was calm and very nice. Just got "home" yesterday.
Oh yeah, and I bought new shoes, a $200 gold-plated mouthpiece designed by Maynard Ferguson, and a Game Boy Advance SP with 2 games.

So this trip, especially the Boston/Vermont part, got me thinking more about music and my future. I did go to like 5 music schools in Boston and I immediately felt much better there than in DC. Traditionally I have tried to stay away from making such decisions right off the bat, because by nature, they're not very logical. However, recently I have started to trust my gut instinct much more than before, if only for the reason that I don't always have the time to allow my brain to catch up with my gut. And just like that first day, when my gut told me I'd hate DC it also says I'd love living in Boston. So that's definitely something for me to think about.
In any case, at this point, all I have to think about is packing up and buying my ticket, all that other stuff comes later.
Oh yeah! And mamma and pabbi just sold our house and bought a new one! They will move right after new year's. Exciting!

2004-10-10T11:29:00.000-04:00

So here's what happened.
Last monday I figured I get a head start since Tótla had assured me they would all go to New Orleans the next (this) weekend. So I bought a ticket online. Then on wednesday, Tótla says they all backed out because they misread their school schedule, have tests right after the weekend and such. So there I was stuck with a non refundable ticket+hotel.
As soon as I heard this I had a little burst of anxiety telling me "don't go alone! don't do it!". I quelled that immediately thinking "well, this would be a perfect opportunity to travel alone, maybe do some writing." So I began to plan leaving, looking at busses and packing. During this time this bad, anxious feeling started to grow for some reason and right before I left, it got to the point where I just said "screw this, I'm staying."
Now, I'm not one to believe in premonitions or anything like that. I don't pretend that this feeling had something to do with a "feeling that something bad was going to happen". In fact I think people who say that are hiding the real reason for why they didn't go, whatever that may be. I'm not really sure why I didn't want to go, I just know when I decided not to, I felt immensely relieved and that's really all that matters. Do I regret not seeing New Orleans? Yes, but I will go there in the future, most definitely. I then realized that this feeling was identical to my school situation.
1. Opportunity to do something interesting in a far off place.
2. Already paid for
3. Alone
4. A feeling of unease towards it, and yet also a feeling that I shouldn't miss this opportunity
The only difference, it took me a year to make the decision here while only a couple days for the NO trip. So I think I've learned to listen to my gut feeling. At least there are no regrets about NO, as I know there will not be about USA.

2004-09-29T19:08:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the long delay between blogs. There's a lot going on in ma brain these here days.
I spent the weekend in Pennsylvania and New York. Fred, one of Þóra's and co. old friends had his 50th birthday party in Milford PA. They own 2 cottages there, right on the Delaware river, so we had this huge "backyard" (quotes because it wasn't so much a yard as a cleared out patch of the surrounding forest) where the party was held. Lotsa food, lotsa booze, 4 girls standing on the back of a renovated 1935 pickup truck playing bluegrass music while we all square-danced. I actually didn't take part in the dancing, was going to, but I was the odd man out.
Spent the night there in one of the cottages and then we headed out to Peter's and Courtney's place in New York.
Pretty amazing place, New York. Extremely overwhelming. Peter's place is teeny, but sells for like $400,000. Crazy. Fred and Helen's place is the same. Reminded me of Manuel's house in Spain, with all the narrow hallways and stuff.
Blah, not really in the mood to describe it all. Suffice to say it was fun.
Yesterday went to see Keane in concert. Ok band, interesting, singer, drums, keyboard, that's it. They were late.
On to more important things. What the hell is going on in my life these days?
Well, I'm finishing up my work here, will be done by the weekend. Then next week I'll start packing things and sending home with Eimskip. Also gonna put up some ad for selling my stuff here, fridge, chair, bike. Then...travel, travel, travel.
The weekend of the 8th, I'm going to New Orleans. Tótla is going there with a bunch of friends, so I figured I might as well go along, since I've always wanted to go there. That will be until the following monday. After that, back to College park, more packing, and then off to Boston on the 15th, to meet up with Stulli. Gonna stay there most likely for a week, then jump up to Vermont to stay with Hildur and Karen for the weekend of the 22nd. Finally, on the way back, I'm hoping I will be able to stay with Peter and Courtney a couple days in New York, do some sightseeing.
Húff, how does that sound? Funfunfun! I'm definitely looking forward to it.
I figure, actual moving home will happen in the first two weeks of november.

2004-09-16T04:33:00.000-04:00

Sooo ANYway....
If you thought my last post was a shocker, wait for this one.
Actually though, most of my family and closest friends already know this...so maybe not such a shocker. Oh well...
I just told my professors that I'm quitting the computer science department here in UMD.
Dun dun daaahhhh
They took it well, just asked why, and asked whether there was anything they could do to help me out. Nice guys, really. So, now beginneth a new phase in my life, wonder what that will be like?
I still haven't decided exactly what's gonna happen. I still have some loose ends to tie up with the research. But that won't take more than a couple of weeks, hopefully less. After that, I intend to go travel a bit, look at other places in the US. Gonna go with Freyja and Þóra to Pennsylvania for a couple of days. Gonna contact Hildur, see if I can come over to Vermont for a visit. A friend of mine is studying in Boston, I want to visit him too. And of course Peter and Courtney in New York. Also, Tótla is doing an exchange program in Jonesboro, Arizona. That could be interesting. She even had some plans to maybe travel into Texas; Dallas or Houston, I might join in.
The idea is not to just decide to move home without looking around. Who knows? I might find something interesting in one of these places. Either way, I'm incredibly relieved at finally having made this difficult decision. It's SUCH a load off my back. Who knows? I might be seeing some of you guys regularly before christmas.

2004-09-14T15:44:00.000-04:00

MUHAHAHA!
You'll never guess what I did this weekend.
Here are a couple of hints:
I travelled over 14000 kilometers.
I spent 26 hours travelling.
I came within 500 kilometers of Iceland, twice.

Okok, from the beginning.
Last tuesday, I woke up around noon, and an important decision had coalesced in my mind(more on that later). Anyway, because of that decision, I knew I had some stuff I had to do the day after (wednesday), during normal business hours...ergo, I needed to get to sleep not too late. Long story short, I stayed up too late.
I decided to play some video games and then realized, whoops! it was 6 in the morning. So I figured, if I went to sleep, I'd sleep through normal business hours and I didn't wanna do that, had some stuff needed to be done.
So I stayed up.
Came back around 2 pm, and wasn't exhausted yet, so I figured I might as well stay up til like 8, and get my cycle back to normal (not that it has been normal since I moved here....but ANYway). So I start to chat with people on msn, play some games, anything not requiring too much brainpower. My friend and fellow trumpet player Sævar pops online and we start to chat. He reminds me that my old wind orchestra Lúðrasveitin Svanur is going to this festival in Bad-Orb, Germany this weekend. So I go like "oh yeah, damn too bad I'm gonna miss that. Say hi and drink some beers for me."
A couple of minutes later, Íris, Sævars wife and also a good friend of mine comes online and says something to the effect of:
"You should come to bad-orb!! YAY!"
And we start to joke about that for a while, "yeah, that would be kinda funny haha." So just for laughs, I start up google and type in:
"Plane tickets Stuttgart" (they live in stuttgart)
I click on the first link which brings me to a page with a form on it, telling you to fill out when you want to leave, what your destination is and your contact information. So, me being quite tired and silly, I said whatthehey, and filled it out. Stuttgart, tomorrow.
Two hours later, after I had totally forgotten about that, the phone rings.
"Hi, you sent a request about a plane ticket tomorrow?"
"Er....yeah.." (*heart racing*)
"Well, I got one for 5pm tomorrow for ya."
"Urmm, can you call back in an hour?"
I had no idea how to react. I needed to speak to someone, so I got Sævar and Íris back on the line, and they set up a webcam connection and we all laughed and shouted and jumped around in excitement while waiting for the guy to call back. Which he did (after an initial moment of doubt on my part). And so I bought a ticket to Stuttgart, with a transfer through Amsterdam, for 5pm on Thursday. (the day after)
The trip itself was a pain. 7.5 hour flight from Dulles to Amsterdam. Land in Amsterdam at 6 in the morning friday, hang around for 2 hours for connecting flight, then 1 hour flight from amsterdam to Stuttgart, where Sævar, Íris, and their little imp Hlynur picked me up. This was the first time I'd met 2 year old Hlynur, and I must say, this kid is klikkaður (but in a good way :) ). They already had another musician friend of ours (Fjalar) staying with them, and now another Icelandic musician friend, and Hlynur was just absolutely ecstatic. Two more big nice guys to jump around on.
Anyway, we had decided that my arrival would be a surprise to everyone, so I didn't mention it at all. So we drive out to Bad-Orb, which should have taken less than 3 hours but took 5 because I tried to navigate.
***Inside joke alert***
"Let's follow Fulda"
***End of Inside joke alert***
Nah, I wasn't only to blame, we all got lost, but it was fun.
And yes, when we finally get there, my arrival was a huge surprise. Just the looks on everybody's faces was totally worth going there, and the warm greeting I got. The whole trip itself warrants a full blog, which I might write later. Suffice to say for now, we spent 3 days there playing music, drinking beer, eating bradwurst, and generally rocking the place.
On sunday, Sævar, Íris, Fjalar, Hlynur and I went back to stuttgart and had an early night. Next day, they took me around Stuttgart, showing me around. (they actually took the day off, just for ME) Seems like a really nice place to live. Something about it that made one feel at ease, can't quite explain it.
After a very nice day on the town, we came back and watched some hilarious, and sometimes embarrassing, videos of Öndin playing at Kaffi Vín the last 2 menningarnætur.
Jón Ingvar: "LALALALALALALALAAAA!"
Us watching "BWAHAHAHAH!"
My flight back was at 6 the next morning, and I just walked in the front door, after a gruelling 14 hours of travel.
But it was soooo worth it.
That's it for now folks, sorry if I made people worried, but I couldn't pass up this opportunity. More on some thoughts and possible Bad-Orb, later.

2004-08-30T21:08:00.000-04:00

Here we go, another "what did I do this weekend" blog.
Well, I was all set to spend the entire weekend playing videogames when I noticed that Dave sent me a mail on Friday saying "We're going to 2 parties this weekend". So I said what the hell.
First party was at a house called the "Lunderdome" after it's resident, Jason Lun. Clever. We get there at around midnight and right away it doesn't look promising. We see groups of people walking away, and as we step out of our car a police car zooms past. Well, the police car did not bust the party, and it turned out that the people leaving were going skinnydipping. Of course, we didn't know about that until later, otherwise we might have joined them :)
The party was fine, open bar as seems to be the norm around here, and we chatted a little, I got to know Georg a little bit, turns out he is a rock climber, and he managed to convince me that I should try it out. So I will.
You know, I've noticed that, for some reason, a certain type of american guy will take off his shirt at a party. Why they think this is cool is beyond me. It's something new to me, at least in a normal party scenario. You go out camping, or to a concert, fine, guys, go nuts. But in a party, in a house? Strange.
Second party we also got there at midnight, when half the people were gone. Dave brought the bottle of icelandic Brennivín I gave him at christmas and people had a taste. Most liked it for some odd reason, and some even likened it to gin, the rationale being, "they are both herbal". The host was a guy named Sandro, who is absolutely manic. Talks at speeds I thought were unimaginable and always has an input on everything...EVERYthing.
On sunday, Freyja, Þóra, and Andy had planned to meet up with me, talk birthday stuff and get something to eat, and I was looking forward to it. Too bad my body decided to be DEATHLY ILL, from drinking.
Sigh.
I couldn't believe it, saturday, after the first party, I was fine. Sunday, after the second, horrible. Drank more on friday, only rum. On saturday I drank mostly beer with 2 shots of Brennivín. Maybe it was the Brennivín? Either way, I was the worst company possible. And I'm sooo sorry guys. They took me out to look at cellphones and to find a local restaurant to eat at. All I could do was stay as still as possible, not daring to breath for fear of throwing up. I could barely even speak. Freyja gave me some pepto bismol tablets. They did help, in the sense that they made me throw up :) While we sat at a local restaurant and the three of them had some food, I had some water and ginger ale....and I managed to throw up 3 times. It was the first time I'd ever thrown up pink. Yay pepto bismol.
Buuut, I really did enjoy myself, listening to them talk and once in a while getting in some words. Þóra gave me some assorted fresh spices from her garden, and two tomatos and a green pepper. And then, as they were leaving, Þóra hands me a card which had a check in it for a ridiculously high amount, which I am to spend on trumpet lessons with Chris Gekker.
Silly Þóra (and peter, courtney and Kirk), you gave me way to much money! But thank you so much, I had already decided this was too expensive for me, especially since my funds are a little less this year than last. But now I can take about 8 classes, yay!
I really wasn't expecting gifts at all, just taking me out for food and a fun day would have been totally enough for me :) But I will make it up to you guys, I'll be better company next time.

Tonight I managed to cook my first salmon steak. I didn't think about marinading, and I totally underspiced it, although I tried using Þóras herbs, but it still tasted great. Salmon has such a strong flavor, maybe one shouldn't spice it too much? I also stir fried Þóra's green pepper in the same pan after frying the fish, which was pretty good as well. All in all, a success.

2004-08-26T13:08:00.000-04:00

I think I've figured out what one of my problems is (if not my main problem)
I only have an attention span of just under 3 years.
When I was in HR doing my computer science BS, I remember having so much fun, all the way until my last semester, when I couldn't wait for it to be over. This is the feeling I have pretty much every day out here. I can't wait for it all to be over so I can get on with my life, do the next interesting thing, whatever that may be. On the other hand, I already know about myself that I need structure to function. So this is the idea I had...
Get myself a steady job where I only have to work 75%, or like 6 hours a day, or less. At the same time, start to methodically go through every degree I could possibly have any interest in. A BS degree takes 3 years, which would be perfect for my attention span. This way I would have the structure (the job), and the constant bombardment of new and interesting things as well, along with new people every step of the way. How does that sound?
The things I see myself going into are:
Philosophy
Psychology
Literature
History
Any foreign language
Possibly even business or economics
And when I have nothing left to study, Law or medicine.

I think I've had enough with the computer/engineering/math side of the world :p
As an interesting side effect, having such a wide education, rather than deep, would possibly open up (carreer)paths I'd never thought about while digging my computer science hole.
Hey, maybe I'll just be a professional polymath.

2004-08-23T20:29:00.000-04:00

Back in the USSR...er, I mean, USA.
I'm not going to detail my whole vacation, it would take too long and probably bore most of you to tears. I'll just jump straight to the highlights.
Originally, I was only going to stay for 2 weeks, from July 28, to August 14. But, then I learned the the Reykjavík Night of Culture (Menningarnótt) was scheduled for August 21. There was absolutely no way I would miss that event. Each year, I and the dixieland band I am a member of (The Dixie Duck) play at the same place, and this is my favorite night of the year. Each year we manage to bring more and more people and have more fun than the previous year, and this time was no exception. In the whole of downtown Reykjavík, there were about 100,000 people that night. We probably had about a thousand of those people stop by our concert in the tiny Kaffi Vín, at some point during the evening. The closest tables were of course inhabited by our most supportive fans, who called me before to make sure I'd save them a spot. They are there every year, and each time they manage to bring a couple friends and convert them into raving fans of the Dixie Duck.
The highlight of our concert is without doubt our "impromptu" parade down Laugavegur, Reykjavík's main street. Around 1 am, when the official schedule is long over, and people are at the peak of their partying, we march down Laugavegur mardi gras style, pulling a crowd of hundreds with us, all the way down the the center of the city, where the masses rival the partying on our national holiday. This year, we had the largest parade yet. Before the concert we had sent a notice to a Jazz newsletter, asking all players to come along with their instruments and join us. We ended up having about 10 extra players, trumpets, trombones, and saxophones. In addition to this, the crowd following us, dancing, singing along, and generally being merry, was larger than ever before. I estimated at least a thousand followed us down the street, with a couple hundred more filling in on the way as others dropped out.
We ended back up at Kaffi Vín with the stragglers from our parade, and the people who decided to wait for our return and use the time to drink more beer, and played our last set til about 3am, when a neighbor started complaining.
But I'm way ahead of myself.
The original timing for my visit home was to coincide with Úlla's wedding. Yup, my little sister is married. She and Manuel brought his whole family from Spain to take part in the festivities. Originally they weren't all going to come, but I'm glad they did. We all had a blast. Manu's older brother Javier brought his wife, Sara, and their two children, Daniel (4) and Marina (1-). His two younger siblings, Pablo and Maria came and partied hard with us, lotsa fun. And of course, his parents, Manuel and Carmen.
Of these people, only Úlla, Manu, and Javier were able to translate. Oh yeah, and Pablo as well, after drinking a six-pack :)
The wedding itself was at Skógar out in the country, and we stayed there at a hotel for the night. The day after was spent showing the Spanish family the wonders of the south part of Iceland. I'll reserve a detailed description of the wedding for Úlla. She will probably post something about it on our family blog.
Three days later, there was a wedding party in Reykjavík for the close family, Pabbi's brothers and Mamma's sisters, and pabbi's aunts, and their immediate families. All in all about 30-40 people. Some of Úlla's friends showed up as well...and got drunk at a record pace :) We ended up dancing a bit there before the older (and younger) people had to go home to bed. We not so young, but not too old people went out to party after that, and ended up dancing for about 4 more hours. The family left the day after, managing to make me promise to come visit and to learn Spanish.
The week after that was spent lying around, playing video games, chilling with Svanur, going to rehearsals for the Dixie Duck, and just getting ready for the Menningarnótt, and also preparing myself mentally for going back to the USA.
An interesting stroke of luck, a good friend of mine decided to get married this summer and sent me an invitation a couple of weeks before I came home....for the 21st of August. What's interesting is that I had just prolonged my visit the day before, so I was able to make it. On the 7th of August we had a bachelor party for him. Not a cheesy hollywood party mind you, just 18 guys driving around in a bus and getting drunk. We went sea fishing, watched Jóhann ride a $20,000 horse, listened to him read custom made, humorous poetry, went to an Icelandic ghost house (which is not scary by the way), and generally got drunk and had a good time. Actually though, I didn't drink, I had to pick up the Spanish family from the airport that night, so I just watched everyone else drink. Still, was lotsa fun.
So how's that for a disconnected jumble of events? Boy, you'd think I'd be able to tell things linearly. But then again, they say the best stories look like the roots of a tree, branching, diverging, sometimes circling. Hey, sounds like my life.
Who knows, maybe I might circle back to Iceland sometime soon.

2004-07-28T04:42:00.000-04:00

Well, here I am, 11 hours before Freyja comes to pick me up to go to the airport, and I can't sleep. I guess I still have some childlike anticipation left in me. I'm all packed and ready to go. I washed my clothes, emptied the fridge, and even did the dishes (my dishes, not my roomates'). Oh yeah, and I played some video games for about 4 hours.
I guess I'll just try to force myself to sleep now, so I'll be fresh and ready for the flight tomorrow. The long, grueling, hateful, flight. Not that I'm afraid of flying or anything. Far from it. Flying is just...so...boring. And uncomfortable. Why they have rows of seats is beyond me. They should have stacks of beds. Like in the overnight trains in Europe. They could easily put 2 levels in each aisle, possibly even 3 like they have on the trains. If we assume that a person lying down takes about two rows, then we need only 2 levels to have the same amount of passengers. Man I'd love to fly that way. You could split the plane in half, have seats in priority for the elderly and handicapped and beds for the rest of us.
Anyway, I'll be walking up the steps to my front door in Iceland in about 24 hours. YAY!
So blogging may be a bit sporadic the next few weeks, not that it hasn't been sporadic already, ah well. To you dedicated readers, don't give up on me, I will begin to blog more regularly again one school starts.

2004-07-27T06:05:00.000-04:00

Okok, so I'm stuck in lazy-blog land. It's summer, and my job is boring the hell outa me, so I haven't really had any reason to blog until now.
Coupla interesting things happened last few days.
First, some guy I have no idea who is commented on my analysis on The Passion. Yay! Some part of me knew that other people read my blog on occasion but I never really thought about it. For some reason I find this very interesting. Hey there might be people out there who have passively read everything I've written and know me pretty well by now! If any of you guys are cute girls around my age, let me know!
Muhahaha.
The other thing was an email I got yesterday. A woman from Georgia happened upon my site while looking for something on Icelandic translation. She has a friend living in Iceland who sent her a sentence in Icelandic and she wanted me to translate. Naturally I did so, since I'm such a nice guy. There's something flattering about knowing that strangers are looking at your website.
However.
The real reason for this blog was a revelation I had about myself and my current situation and fram of mind. It's brillinat I say, brilliant!
First some background. Let me try to describe the related aspects of my personality so I can make this revelation as interesting to you as it was to me. I am and have always been the type to jump into anything and everything fearlessly, even though I might get scared after actually jumping in. In the process of said jumping I have been hurt many times, but I have never let that faze me and always rebound eventually, ready for some more action. This is not so much a concious philosophy as it is an integral part of my personality. It's not something I can switch of, so to speak. And as such, it affects all parts of my life, both physical and emotional. I am the type who will meet someone and fall in love immediately. In fact, I have done so. And I have been hurt quite badly also.
So now for my current situation.
I have spent most of my time here in the US alone, reading, working, playing games, watching movies. I always assumed it was just because I was in another country, far away from most of my loved ones. But now I think that I would have felt EXACTLY the same anywhere in the world, it just would have been dulled by being at home with m&p's support, and all my friends.
So now for the revelation.
I realized that I am in self-exile. I have effectively removed myself from "the game" by just staying mostly alone. Instead of trying to go out, meet people, meet girls, possibly start a relationship, jump into it, and get hurt again, I have subconsciously "saved" myself by removing myself from the venue of said game. I could have tried to force myself to:
A. Not jump into things like I always do
B. Not allow failed relationships to have such an effect on me
C. Not open up as much as I do, as quickly as I do
However, this would mean trying to change what is me. I figure that my subconcsious, or whatever you wanna call it, kept me from compromising myself, while also keeping me from getting hurt again, by just keeping me away from the game. Brilliant I say!
I realized this while speaking to my good friend Úlfur. We are so very similar in this matter, go all out, and then wonder at why this girl walks all over us and then leaves. I sortof realized that this is all like gambling. You can play safely and maybe end up with a slight profit in the long run, or you can be the high-roller.
I am a high-roller. I find something that looks promising, and instead of betting low and hoping that it will stick around so I can bet low for a long time and profit in the long run, I bet everything on it. When I lose, I need time to regroup, find another promising prospect, and gather enough funds to make the next bet.
Right now, I'm gathering funds. And the only reason it's taking longer this time is because most of the people donating to my funds are far away.
Once I've regrouped, I will make another bet, and most likely lose again. This will continue ad nauseum, or until I win.
Here's hoping I win ;)

2004-07-14T17:18:00.000-04:00

Fleh.

2004-07-12T00:48:00.000-04:00

Okok, it's been way too long.
Nothing much happening lately, been working and playing hard. (mostly playing) I am still stuck in this place called limbo, where I haven't decided anything. However, I am managing to not think about it as much as I did before, resulting in an overall increase in my good spirits. Might also be due to the fact that I'll be home for almost a month in 2 weeks time. Anyway...
So I watched The Passion of Christ.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a religious person. I am not agnostic nor am I an atheist. I choose not to make a decision. I do, however, have strong negative feelings towards organized religious groups, such as the Catholic Church. Note, these feelings are not directed towards the catholic religion, nor towards catholics. People can believe whatever the hell they want, I don't give a flying rat's ass. But I digress...

This movie is completely and absolutely worthless.

This is a disgusting movie. It really has nothing to do with Christianity or Christ for that matter. It has no morales, no message, no nothing. What it does have is blood. This is a movie about torture. Plain and simple. Sure it tells the story of Christ after he gets caught, adds in a couple of flashbacks to some staple scenes where he says something straight from the bible.
Christ in this movie could have been replaced by any other character and this movie wouldn't have changed at all. It could have been called "The Passion of McDoodlefuck" and been about the torture of poor McDoodlefuck. Granted, there are scenes which everybody connects to Christ, the crown of thorns, the crucifixion. But this stuff is all just thrown in just to make sure you really know this is a movie about Christ.
Every single roman in this movie is a bloodthirsty pig who is controlled by some weird looking bald guy in a black dress who carries an ugly baby around with him. I think that is supposed to be the devil. The women do nothing but moan.
Cavaziel does a great job at being pathetic and blood-covered. Apart from that, there is no acting in this movie. Mary is just stone faced, and she gets a trademark-hollywood-single-tear scene. In another scene, she shows how sad she is by grasping two handfuls of sand.
Ok, so that's the movie part of what's wrong. Now for the religious part.
Is this actually what Catholic people like to see? Is this actually what their religion is based upon? Let's take a scene, where a person is tortured in the most gruesome way, and base our entire religion, code of morales, and lives, on it. Am I the only one who sees how sick this is? I mean, fine, when it is only in print you can sort of not imagine the disgusting aspects of it and focus on the good "died for our sins, yadayada". But when it is portrayed so bluntly in front of you, how can one even accept this? There were a couple of scenes in the movie which I found quite disturbing (apart from the torture). The first was after he is scourged and Mary and Magdelene come and wipe up his blood on a couple of white towels or something, and save them, sort of touching the blood, of course because the blood is "holy". The same thing happens later. Some woman, who is not introduced (but I'm sure devout Catholics know who she is supposed to be) goes up to Jesus as he is carrying his cross and hands him a white towel which he presses his face into. She then takes it and cuddles it to her own face. The third scene was after Christ is dead, and Longinus sticks him with a spear to make sure he's dead. The wind kicks up and sprays the blood across his face and LO AND BEHOLD! for some reason Longinus drops to his knees as if he just had an aneurysm. I'm sure he was supposed to have had some sort of epiphany, but I'll be damned if I know what about. By the way, the whole scene with the storm after Jesus dies is super-hokey.
I'm sure a lot of you think I'm just prejudiced agains Christianity, but no, that's not it. There have been many good movies about Christianity, for example Life of Brian and Jesus Christ Superstar....
Okok I'm kidding.
But still, I don't think I'm prejudiced, in fact I think I can see past the fact that this is basically just a hyped up movie for fans of Christianity (aka Christians). In fact, I would liken this movie to Hellboy. Both have a cast of characters not really introduced but very familiar to fans. Both have a story not built up in any way, but very familiar to fans. The difference is, Hellboy actually has a plot, while The Passion does not. The Passion uses one chapter in the story of Jesus Christ as an excuse to make the most disgusting movie ever made.
Seriously people, this movie is bloodier and more abhorrent then Reservoir Dogs or Natural Born Killers.

Alright, rant over.

So I'm going home for Úlla's wedding. For those of you who don't know, she's marrying her Spaniard, Manuel :) The whole family is coming from spain, sounds like funfunfun! I lengthened my stay one week so I could play at Menningarnótt at Kaffi Vín, like the last couple of years, and in a lucky turn of events, received an invitation from a friend to his wedding during that extended time.
Everybody's getting married and having kids! What's wrong with these people? :s

ANYway...going to sleep.

2004-07-03T11:42:00.000-04:00

It's happy-birthday-Manu-day!

2004-06-22T11:17:00.000-04:00

Well, like Frodo wrote, "There and Back Again" (or was it Bilbo?)
Iceland was very nice, even though I barely had enough free time to think, let alone spend with my family. Almost every minute of each of the 4 days I had was planned in advance.
It all started with Nice Auntie Freyja driving me to the airport because I had a flash of paranoia, envisioning myself waiting for some stupid bus to take me there and it not coming and me cursing and missing the airplane (This paranoia is from mamma, btw). The flight home was ok, although I hate flying. They showed Cactus Flower and The Candidate, both oldies. Cactus Flower has Goldie Hawn in it. Never seen her so young before. I finally understood why a whole generation of men fell for her. I had fallen for her within a minute of the movie :p.
Mamma picked me up at the airport, and drove us home, where some big teenager claiming in a voice deeper than my own to be Darri waited for us. He's doing the same thing I did around this age, skipping the whole "broken voice" thing. I stayed at home, chatting with m&p&d for a couple of hours, until I got picked up at around 2pm by the guys.
For those who didn't know, I came home ONLY to be at my good friend's Jón Grétar's wedding. So we were taking him into the country for a "bachelor" party. Mind you, not an "American bachelor" party, with strippers and bullshit. Nono, just a sort of formal "last time getting wasted with all the guys" party. One of the guys' family owns some land in the country along with a little rustic hotel. We stayed there for free. Basically, we just got drunk, grilled some meat, went swimming in one of Iceland's oldest swimming pools (Seljalands laug), and saved 2 swedish girls. They had stuck their car in some sand, and came up to the house, hoping to find some old farmer to help them out. Instead they got 6 strapping young Icelandic men, eager to please sweet Swedish girls. It was quite funny. We also took a little offroad trip on a tiny, square shaped, buggy, through some of the glacial rivers and a ways up the mountains behind. Very exhilarating. My forearms probably grew half an inch in diameter from gripping the buggy.
The day after that was spent mostly in recuperation and visiting people. Saturday was the day of the wedding. Our gift to Johnny was going to be a musical composition. We had decided this in January, when he asked us (after a bottle of cognac) to write the piece of music instead of giving them something physical. We loved the idea then. Now, 5 hours before the wedding, and no music in sight, we weren't quite as fond of it. BUT, since we are such musical geniuses, we met at 10 in the morning, Stefán Jón, Stulli and I, put our heads together, and came up with a piece of music which was actually quite nice. Silja, Stefáns significant other, actually contributed greatly to this as well. We managed to get a theme from Johnny's favorite Kiss song woven into our music, over a theme written by Silja which had a strong "Chariots of Fire" feel to it. It might not have been a masterpiece, but it dropped Johnny's jaw. So, he was happy which made us feel happy. Hey guys, maybe we should try to write some other stuff together, since we managed this in only 2 hours? :)
The wedding was nice, very short, good food, and then straight to another party while they enjoyed their wedding night. Went to a graduation party at my friend Finnur's house, where his parents were very diligent at keeping my glass full. Brought my trumpet along and attempted to play a little bit while a guitarist strummed some chords and Finnur pounded a conga. I met a bunch of people from my past, always fun.
The day after that, more recuperation, more visits, and then I left the day after that. Had my last meal at Old West with Svanur at lunch time.
All in all, I had fun, although travelling so much in such a short time is exhausting.
Right now, I'm just getting back into gear with the research. We just had a girl come in to help us out. She's cute...too bad she's 17 ;) She's from a high-school nearby, a top student who got a grant from her school to do whatever she wants this summer, and she chose AI at UMD, so she was sent to us.
Anyway, I'll be back home at the end of July, and will be staying for almost 4 weeks then, so plenty of time to meet people.

2004-06-12T21:47:00.000-04:00

I've managed to get this far in life without regretting anything, not one single decision I've ever made. Granted, many of my decisions resulted in things turning out differently than I had planned, and in possibly less desirable situations. However, through this all, I've managed to keep in mind that "past is past". Decisions have been made and what matters now is what happens in the future. Even through a painful breakup with a former girlfriend, I managed to keep to this idea, that thinking about the past, pining over a bad decision rather than trying to do something in the present, is bad for you and ultimately destructive. And then, sometimes one must realize there is nothing one can do, put that realization in the past, and apply the same idea; past is past.
I have reached a point where, yes, maybe there is something which I regret; something I had and then lost, until someone else found it. I just hope I can place it firmly in my past.

Elsku Gunnhildur, til hamingju með allt það góða sem hefur hent þig síðustu mánuði. Þú átt allt það besta í lífinu skilið. Ég vona að þú hafir fundið það sem þú vissir ekki að þú vildir.

In other news, I'll be going home for 5 days next wednesday, wheee! It'll be a tight schedule; land around 6am the morning of the 17th, sleep a bit, meet with the guys and go to a summerhouse somewhere in the middle of nowhere, get stinking drunk and come home the next day. Spend friday recuperating with the family. Wedding on the 19th, my good friend Jón Grétar is the groom. After that I figure the rest of us will go out and get drunk again. Spend sunday recuperting with the family. Then I leave for USA the next day, the afternoon of the 21st of june. I was going to not mention this on my blog until afterwards, people usually expect you to contact them if you're at home, so since my time is so limited, I figured I'd avoid it by not posting about it. Also, I was going to surprise some people with visits. But I decided against it. Anyway, if any of you guys at home would like to meet up with me, drop by for a visit or whatever, friday and sunday I'll be home and more than willing to entertain visitors, just expect me to be smelly and grumpy. Saturday evening I'll be going between a couple of parties, so you could always give me a call then, I'll be around. I will still have my old number 695-2476. And if I don't see you next week, I'll most likely meet you when I come back home in august for Úlla's wedding.

2004-06-10T06:03:00.000-04:00

It's Happy-Birthday-Darri-Day. Everybody say happy birthday to my little bro.
:)

2004-06-02T22:00:00.000-04:00

I am so fucking pissed.
This is the final straw. Tomorrow I start looking for apartments. I'm moving.
It all started this morning/afternoon. I woke up around 11, went online, did my usual stuff. Then decided to go get something to eat, remembered that I had loads of rice I had cooked the night before, maybe I'd make some fried rice. So I go into the kitchen and there is my rice, overturned in some other dirty pot.
The thing was, when I cooked the rice the night before, all the plastic containers had been full so I just put the pot in the fridge with the lid on it. The rice had burned a little, but since I couldn't empty it, I couldn't clean it. So this morning the pot was in the sink and my rice destroyed. I pounded on Binh's door and asked him to explain himself. He gets all upset and starts shouting things at me. Here's what I could make out:
"This is my pot"
"I tried to wake you this morning but couldn't"
"You know I use this pot everyday. I was quite angry this morning when I couldn't cook my food"
So I immediately told him that there are a lot of things in the kitchen which are mine and Dan's and we all use them without a fuss. Which made no dent in his argument. I told him we had never established any boundaries as to who was allowed to use what. Deaf ears. I was really angry at him for throwing away my food. You just don't do that. So I started shouting back at him. It all ended with me telling him to go fuck himself and slamming my door. Then he attacks my door with some wild spinning kick, gets me out again and tells me to wash his pot, which I did. No reason not to, I had burned the rice. After that, I went through the kitchen, pulled out everything I had brought with me, and moved it to my room. If the plastic containers had food in them...oops! too bad. Got a little vindictive there.
Immediately after that I sent my landlord a letter asking for a key to my room (never got one). I don't know what Binh is capable of and I don't want to find out. However, some part of me wants to just push him so he'll do something that could get him thrown out of the country.
I wish that were all.
Tonight Tos started to do bills. They went over phone bills, adsl and cable(TV). I immediately pointed out that I don't have a TV, and our community TV has been broken since January before I came back from my break. So I haven't used our cable AT ALL.
Then all hell broke loose.
Dan wouldn't even consider it. I offered to pay half, even though I felt I didn't owe a dime. No deal. And he thinks he is so in the right. One analogy I gave in my defense was "If I didn't have a computer, would you charge me for the ADSL?" And they said without a blink, Yes. What kind of a twisted way of thinking is this? Their rationale was that "it is available to you, you just don't use it". If the community TV were working, I'd be fine with that. But I don't even have a cable line into my room, let alone a TV. In my opinion, they are robbing me of $100.
Man am I furious.
So anyway, I'm searching for apartments starting tomorrow.

2004-05-24T01:05:00.000-04:00

Well, not much to say this time. I'm just in the "can't-or-won't-go-to-sleep" phase, so I figured...
Met up with the DnD group I found on the net, which was fun (although it was after an insomnic night, so I was a bit lethargic). Spent all day after that just lounging around, although I did do a tiny bit of writing.
Started playing Final Fantasy XI again, against my own common sense. Meh, I have time now, so it's not a big deal.
Toilet's still broke, research is still stuck, same old same old. I actually did cook some fried rice and it was pretty good. In fact the boiled rice by itself was surprisingly tasty. I followed a recipe where they said you were supposed to wash the rice first (to get the starch off or something?) and then I bring the water+rice to a quick boil and immediately lower heat and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. This way the rice was sticky and chunky, and tasty (I always remember rice tasting like paper, except when it was spiced of course). I put a whole bunch of stuff into the fried rice, but still didn't manage to get it to be tasty. I guess next time I'll try to put the garlic in first, get the taste into the oil, and then the rice+onions, and then the veggies. Last time I just threw it all in at once. I even put soysauce and got the rice to be lightbrown in color, but the taste just seemed to vanish. Maybe I'll try putting half a bullion into the oil or something
Meh, what a pathetic blog (pathetiblog, patheblogic), don't have much to say.
Maybe I should become like a behavioral anthropologist. Since I'm always looking at people and how they behave, and I still can't understand most peoples subtle signs...sometimes not even the blatant ones :)
I have been doing a lot of thinking on how people act and why they do what they do, especially since I've been watching a lot of tv shows, where narrative and storytelling play a lead role. Now I know one shouldn't attempt to base reality on a fantasy...HOWEVER, I realized that the most popular of these shows have a direct effect on popular culture and also on how young minds think. The example formost in my mind is the show Sex and the City.
DISCLAIMER: For my male friends, I tell them I watch this show because a) it's got a lot of cute girls in it, and b) it (supposedly) gives me insight into the female psyche.
I had lots of fun watching this show to begin with, and then when my ocd hooks were firmly in place and I HAD to finish watching it, the show started to get ugly. The main characters are all supposed to be liberal, free women, dating whom they choose and bladebla. In reality, they are just bitches hung up on every clichéd thing a woman is "supposed" to be hung up on. And I realized, all the young girls who idolize these characters are going to grow up to be them. And that just made me almost sick to my stomach. One great example:
The main character, Carrie, moves in with a guy, and they break up, and because of complications, she loses the apartment. It was rent-controlled so she needs to get a loan to afford another apartment. Turns out that she, being a 35 year old, has something like $800 in savings. She goes wahwah and whines on her friends' shoulders, and realizes that she has spent over $40,000 on shoes alone in the past 10 years. Enter crisis as she realizes she has to change her lifestyle to live. Then she magically gets a better job and is able to continue her lifestyle. And back to the shoes and no saving.
I totally respect a show's right to do whatever they want, and I'm not saying it's their fault or a bad show or anything. I'm just saying, what does this tell young girls? I mean, comon...$40,000 in shoes? And it's not just stuff like this, it's everything. The show only serves to perpetuate half-myths and stupid cultural rituals which only complicate things in relationships. And this show would actually affect young boys just as badly. The women are painted as saints, when, after just a cursory glance under the surface, you realize they are just simpering bitches, little princesses that whine when they don't get what they want. And Carrie ends up with the womanizer, rich, cool guy who broke her heart, while herself breaking the heart of the really nice guy who loved her from day one.
So it's true what they say guys. If you want the girl, you gotta be the jerk. Or at least it will definitely be true now, after millions of women in the world have watched this show and identified with it. At least according to articles I read, this show has "become an icon for women in a man's world" bladeblablingblingblah.
I think the whole way of thinking/living which is portrayed in this show is almost sick. But because the show is actually well done, I even found myself believing some of the hogwash, if only for a moment. If it can affect me, I can only wonder how much it affected younger and more easily influenced minds.
The other thing that annoyed me was the depiction of gay people. Now I don't pretend to know much about that, but I do know that not all gay guys have an impeccable fashion sense or speak with a stupid half-lisp and exuberant gesticulation. Nor do they all dress in assless leather pants and take off their shirt wherever they go out partying.
Ah well, anyway...just ranting. Guess I'll get to sleep before I get incoherent.

p.s. just for extra clarification. I am NOT under the mistaken assumption that this show, or any other show for that matter, is a reflection of reality. I am afraid that reality might come to reflect this show due to its popularity.