Imaginary time capsule

Got a job as an assistant editor for an ad company, been working there two+ weeks but they're really struggling financially (and with some other major issues) so we're sort of expecting the company to go belly-up any day now.

That's you up to date, now I want to talk about comic books again.

I know these days DC are trying to sorta make Harley Quinn into their own Deadpool (off-beat comedy, insane protagonist, fourth wall-breaking gags), but I don't see why they'd need to when they have Ambush Bug. In a sense he's more Deadpool-y than Deadpool, because he doesn't have a tragic origin story and everything about him is satire about something else.

Ambush Bug started out as a Superman villain in the early eighties (created by one of the guys who went on to make Justice League International) before he became one of the good (if mentally unstable) guys. His real name is Irvin Schwab (God I love that name) and he wears a mysterious costume that came from outer space, and it grants him the ability to teleport all through the Multiverse.

This character doesn't just break the fourth wall, he moves backwards through his own comics, switches genres mid-story, visits his own creators, namedrops Marvel characters (!!), all sorts of crazy stuff. There are more jokes than plot in Ambush Bug comics.

One recurring theme is how Ambush Bug just wants comics to be fun again, so there is a lot of ridiculing grim and violent trends in cape comics. Reading the eighties' comics had me going "Haha yeah I guess that was a trope" but now I've moved to the most recent A.B. miniseries I really get to explore just how upset I still am about a lot of DC editorial mandates (I swear DC fans still have PTSD after the death of Ted Kord. I get violent flashbacks whenever a comic revisits the line "Rot in hell, Max.")


I guess I see why DC has largely moved away from Ambush Bug. They don't tolerate anyone making fun of them anymore, not even their own characters.

I'm working on my resumé, and I suddenly realize I'm supposed to say what my bachelor thesis was about.

I had to restrain myself from putting down "Thesis: HOW PIPPIN THE YOUNGER WAS AWESOME." (I instead opted for the slightly more formal but way less exciting "Analysis of the relationship between Church and State in Eighth Century France.")

Though I daresay the first one is slightly more indicative of my intention behind the thesis.

Random aside: I like how "resumé" is one of the few instances where it's us Norwegians who use original Latin (Curriculum Vitae, C.V. for short) while you English-speaking folk Americans don't. You use Latin via FRENCH. HAHA SUCKERS.

(I did not get a lot of sleep last night, due to dreading my dentist appointment today. My student card is only valid to the end of the month, so I need to take advantage of every discount I can get).

SWEET JESUS FINISHED. I've sent off my +200 Trivial Pursuit questions to my editor and signed an important-sounding contract with Webster/Hasbro (with scary words like "whereas" and "forthwith" in it, very daunting). Here's hoping there won't be any complications further on.

It's been uphill work. I wasn't told early on that I would be solely responsible for the entire history category, and that I'd been hired to write trivia questions about Norwegian history, which has never been my strong suit (here's a secret - Norwegian history students are supposed to get the exact same education they would get if they studied in Germany or Latvia or Spain. What I know about the vikings I learned as a child).

Anyway, I'm exhausted and got a cold, I'm prepared to dive back under my blanket and play some Viva Piñata. I'm guessing it'll take at least a week before I stop feeling guilty about "not writing my daily question quota".

Nyagh. Haven't done my daily quota of TP questions today since my mind is completely occupied with my bachelor thesis (the first presentation is due Monday, you know). Ah, I guess I'll have to double my workload tomorrow.

At least I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of my bachelor thesis. I was in high spirits when I wrote the presentations, so at the moment it bears the subtitle "Coup-d'etat á la Pepin the Younger" (French, how á propos, right?). I'll probably get a stern comment from a professor but I don't care.

In fact I first didn't intend for the thesis to centre so much around Pepin the Younger (a.k.a Pippin the Small for that cosy Tolkien feel), but the more I read about the Carolingians the more annoyed I get that historians are all gay for Charlemagne. Sure Charlemagne was pretty awesome, but they seem to forget he was the result of a pretty darn great dynasty. His great-grandfather was the stuff of legends (literally)! His grandfather was called "The hammer" and got on swimmingly despite being a bastard (you know, in the "illegitimate child" way)! And his father, our dear Daddy Pepin, he went from being mayor of the palace (pretty much a glorified valet) to a king in one asshole manouver.

He's like a Disney villain come to life! His success in battle is still evident today (just ask the Pope who they got that nice little Vatican from)! And before Charlemagne came along he was the biggest thing to happen to the Franks since Clovis.

Oh, don't get me started on Clovis.

I've been to the info meeting, fired off an e-mail to my student councilor, bought dinner for the next three days AND written more than my daily quota of TP questions. In summary: I've calmed the fuck down for now. Time for stupid observations.

You know that new movie of Polanski's, Ghost writer? I haven't seen it yet but I've noticed the Norwegian title is Skyggen - "The shadow". Which makes me want to see Ewan McGregor running around with a swanky hat, guns and psychic powers and vigilantin' all over the place.


Also completely unrelated but there'll never be an excuse to casually mention this:

The picture of the month on my lovely Star Trek wall calendar is Chekov screaming in pain in 'The Way to Eden' and it just keeps on amusing me every day! All the other images so far has been this or that character looking noble and brave and pretty but when it's Chekov Month you apparently can't define him better than with his eyes screwed shut and in the middle of a loud nasal whine.

I don't think any other character in TOS ever screamed quite as much, and I'm including Nurse Chapel here.

It's one of those days. It's too warm to do anything but I'm still too restless to do nothing. I've finished rereading Watchmen (over the course of a week. This is the first time the whole story has really clicked into place for me, pirate bits and all), I've strolled through the park, I've taken a walk along the pier (not Bryggen, which is crawling with tourists these days) but even the breeze felt too hot. It's actually colder here in my room, but the laptop is working at glacial pace and I haven't got the peace of mind to read novels.

Well I guess it's like my dad has told me, "There are few things as healthy as being bored once in a while." I admit it's nice being this free to experience boredom. The funny thing is it really isn't all that hot, I'm just so unaccustomed to Bergen being anything but slightly too chilly.

Oh yeah and it seems like I've got a job! Writing questions for the next Trivial Pursuit game, no less. I know I've said "quiz-writing is too much work on a professional basis and I'm never doing it again", but - money is money, work is work and I have to admit I'm excited to think about that bit of glossy paper in the Family Game Numero Uno with my name on it. I'd say something about prostituting myself for glory but I can't think of a snappy punchline.

Make my bed and light the light
I'll be home late tonight
Leave your perch and take the sky
Too-da-loo, farewell, bye bye

Well, I'm off on a good start, at least. Got the whole Nitrogen cycle down before I went to bed last night, and today I learned the Hardy-Weinberg principle by heart and all its deviations.

Big Finish has gotten hold of my monies today, oh yes.

Ooh, I'm letting an old acquiantance listen to my Invaders from Mars audio. Well, we got talking about War of the worlds and it sort of went from there. Poor guy will probably quite puzzled with the Charley business. Not to mention with the alien guy travelling the universe in phone box business...

Stayed up last night to watch Jabberwocky. Oh dear... It's not like I was one of those people expecting Monty Python part two (though some scenes struck me as quite The holy grail), or even something along Brazil which I love, but it really wasn't that funny, was it. I mean, Michael Palin did a wonderful sort of hapless bedraggled hero in a cute way (so I had something pretty to look at for one and half hours), and there were all sorts of wonderful accents to listen to, and well, the monster itself was done in a quite lovely way, but everything else? Ugh. And a silly scene in a certain audio play kept popping up in my mind...

( The scene in question with geeky bits of trivia )

I imagine I'd have so much to write here today, but really, all I've done today is studying, having a couple of breaks listening to the ending of Zagreus of all things, and a meeting at work discussing the new children's books campaign.

And speaking of Zagreus (I swear, someday I'll stop talking about it because it interests no one but me, but this is not that day), people can aim a lot of critique at it, but the ending! There's not a single thing wrong with the very ending. I love the sort of Casablanca farewell scene between the Doc and Romana. "I'll miss you, Doctor" - "You'll get by." And ( here we go on about Charley again )

What? I've been reading about Mendehl's pea experiments all day. I need to do a bit of fangasming to reboot my mind.

Os ska bu ti Sonsteinheilla
Bli du dærfor intje ræd
Stuge mi æ hole fjella
Mæ guld å sylv åro klæd

Today's quota: filled

That brings you back, doesn't it? It's actually much easier making questions this time around - the lovely people at NRK have already decided which categories I have to use. Although some of them quite puzzles me (Norwegian opera?), I save a lot of time when I don't have to wrack my brain for every little category.

I'm a little bit more clever this time around too - just move everything into the Deichman library, and the world's at my fingertips. Well, eventually people began to look at me strangely as my desk got completely hidden behind high stacks of books - Ibsen, Harry Potter, the French revolution, Grieg, The Hobbit, Roman emperors, anthology of children's books of 1989...

But, as I said, today's quota: Pwned.

After a few hours of mental exertion, I thought to myself that if I didn't find a spot of grass to lie in, I would surely die. But I glimpsed the tops of trees over a building, and decided to walk towards it. And I walked. And walked. And walked even further.

Oh, so it was a cemetary. A nice cemetery, though. Huge.

Turns out I had walked all the way to Vår Frelsers Gravlund - the main honorary cemetary in Norway. I could swear it was in another part of Oslo, but no - so I went exploring.

All the Norwegian big shots are buried there: Bjørnson, Fearnley, Munch, Øverland, Krohg, Prøysen and Ibsen (with a weird hammer symbol on an obelisk - I thought it was some communist sigil or other), my guess is, if you've heard of them and they're Norwegian, that's where they're buried.

The big one, though, and the only one I actively searched for, was of course the grave of Henrik Wergeland (some day I'll sit down and figure out my unfounded love for Wergeland. Is it the hedonism? The poetry? The sex scandals? The aftershave? I just don't know). It's in a shaded grove, some way from the other famous people, and not easy to miss when you know what you're looking for: A not entirely attractive green metal steeple with gilded herons on the side, with a bust under it.

Have I ever mentioned my love of tombstones? My main reason for loving cemetaries are the tombstones. Just imagine a life, fleeting thing it is, carved into stone, adorned with flowers and candles. Who says ancestral worship isn't practised in Europe?

The best tombstone in this particular cemetary, though, is that of Herman Wildenvey. Nothing fancy, just a bust, and poem underneath it: "Hark, you whose young heart creates wondrous melodies / to my words so that the poem speaks when I am quiet" (or something like that, I'm translating from memory).

So. Hungry. I might die. I'm boiling potatoes right now. Foooood.

I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark
We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks
I really need you tonight
Forever's gonna start tonight

Most love songs are best performed in a mellow, hum-volumed way. And then there's the few best delivered shouting at the top of your lungs, terrifying children, animals and boyfriends alike. This is one.

Who's my little laptop? Who's my precious darling laptop? You are! Oh yes you are!

It's fixed, my darling computer's fixed! And it's like it always was, sound files, unfinished short stories, Hugh Laurie wallpaper and all. One minute exception though: My welcoming screen is no longer in cyrillic (and Hugh Laurie I have now replaced with John Simm. Oh yeah.)

Oh, but it's back!

Quite a quiet day at work today. I had a great day though - I think this might have been my first day of work where I didn't do anything colossaly wrong (anyway, if I did, I won't find out for another week. So, yeah, all is well). And while I was giftwrapping George's marvellous medicine for a grandfather who couldn't wait for his grandchildren to discover Roald Dahl, I thought to myself, "Wow. This is a great job! At the grocery store people never asked my opinion on anything. If it was quiet I had no reason to go read the ingredients of tomato soup. Kids were never so jazzed about buying a popsicle as they are when they get their hands on the latest Phenomena book." I love it!

And I discovered another perk: Bookstore editions! Publishers gladly thrust not-yet-published books into my hands so I can read and recommend them when they arrive. For free!

Okay, finally saw The sound of drums. I watched it yesterday, today it's gone. BBC sure are quick on the trigger. Nice episode though. The Master is awesome as always, and the Doctor totally wants to be his little Gallifreyan wife. Not sure I really want to see The last of the Time Lords now, since I'm 100 % convinced of how it all will end. Boo.

Oh gods I miss my laptop.

It seems reparations will take even longer since the place that was going to fix it went banca rupta. Oh yes. I don't even get to see it until this other place has gotten hold of it. Oh no.

I only got cash for another half hour at this internet café. Woe is me. Woe I say.

But, in other news, I got a job! A real, honest, money-handling job. At a bookshop, nonetheless. Aw, it's nice to earn money, but I still royally screw up now and then.

I'm going to work tomorrow, and you know what day it is. Uh-huh. I'm certain that by tomorrow night, I'll be sick to death of handling that massive black book.

Well, who knows when I'll be online again. See you then.

Woe.