In My Head

I had a dream where I discovered that southern Sweden directly bordered Mauritania and Northern India, so I immediately started to plan the road trip of a lifetime! (For the record, Mauritania was to the east, and had a slightly longer border with Sweden than India did)

I awoke to find, somewhat disappointingly, that this is not actually the case. No offense Denmark.

Just for fun, here is a mock-up that I made of how it would actually look. The borders fit quite well together, I must say, especially India and Sweden!

Fascinating

The 21st century is a weird and wonderful place to live.

From the comments of the previous Money as Debt videos I came across this guy:




He has 126 (!) videos on YouTube, which he posts in response to other people's videos. All of them are about the same length and contain basically the same rant/information:

• he is a US armed forces veteran
• he claims his old boss was murdered but it was framed as a suicide
• he claims he was abducted and forcibly injected
• he claims someone tried to 'assassinate' him
  
• he doesn't trust the government and wants them out of power (through violent revolution)
  
• he believes we're in the middle of a technological war an doesn't trust technology (despite using YouTube to spread his message)
  

He also apparently wants to attend a local city council meeting again some day since he was (perhaps unsurprisingly) barred from them.

Now, I'm not laughing at the guy...he's obviously got serious issues. Who knows what exactly caused them or when they cropped up. But man, what a fascinating case. How many thousands of people must exist like this in the world? Does he feel like he's accomplishing anything with these videos? Man, the whole situation just blows my mind. The only reason I know about this guy is because he's chosen to make and share these thoughts on the web (I just watched a new one where he says he'd like to move to Iran) -- and yet now, because of the Internet, I have a partial glimpse into the bizarre life story of one individual whom I otherwise would never know existed. I wish I could offer the guy some help, but I really don't feel like there's a whole lot I could accomplish from across the world (I have a hard enough time keeping in touch with friends and family, let alone crazy strangers). And now the only reason you know about him is because you choose to read the thoughts that I share and publish on the web.

Wow, I love new media.

EDIT: Man...the more videos I watch, the more weird quirks I learn about the dude...I mean, it's pretty much the same material over and over again, but every now and then he'll just a drop a sentence here or there and it will completely come outta left field (my favourite so far is how he wouldn't have bombed Hiroshima because of all the beautiful japanese women there). What an incredible character!

EDIT 2: There's a new idea he seems to be advocating lately: a control child. Have one child that gets injections and medicine from the government and goes to public school and have another that avoids all of that and is home schooled. I'm not convinced either of them would turn out ok...

Money as Debt

Holy shit, this is informative. Sometimes I really wish I had studied economics...

Watch this, and then go watch the other 4 parts as well.

The Night Before Christmas

Sometimes I love xkcd.


Dude also just put a ball pit in his room. That's amazing!

Courtesy of TimeAndDate.com

For some reason blogger doesn't agree with the use of tables. Scroll down.

Location:	Date:	Sunrise:	Sunset:	Length of Day:
Toronto	Dec. 18/07	7:46am	4:42pm	8h56m01s
London	Dec. 18/07	8:02am	3:52pm	7h50m26s
Oslo	Dec. 18/07	9:16am	3:11pm	5h54m42s

BBC Bonanza

I'm taking a break from my final exam (which is discussing the jovial issues of Structural Violence and AIDS in Africa) and I came across another BBC article that made me smile:

One-fifth of Canadians Immigrants

I found this one funny but for a different reason than the last one. Although it accurately states all of the facts, it does so in such a British fashion. I realize that they're talking about first-generation immigrants, but really, in my mind, 99% of all Canadians are immigrants. With the exception of Natives (who, in all probability are actually immigrants from Asia thousands of years ago anyways) all Canadians 'come' from somewhere else. In fact, a large part of our national identity (which is a work-in-progress itself) is the concept of the 'mosaic' - many smaller pictures combining to make up one larger picture.

Maybe I'm reading my own biases too much into it, but it seems very, well, European, to differentiate between foreign-born and national-born residents. As I've mentioned here previously, the best friend I've made in Oslo is a Chinese-Canadian girl from Vancouver. Her family moved to Canada when she was 6 years old (I'm pretty sure?) but I don't think of her as any more or less Canadian than myself (or than my Anglophone roommate from Montreal or than the 2 bilingual girls I know here from the Unversity of Alberta).

I guess it just seems to me that the article places a large difference on 'immigrants' versus 'Canadians' which does make sense because it's an article about immigration, however I just don't get the feeling that the majority of Canadians would view the country through such a dialectical lens. Also, it frames statements in the negative (i.e., "People speaking neither French nor English as their native language now make up 20% of the total population, the highest recorded in the recent past.") Rather than the affirmative (something like "People's who native language is something other than English or French now make up 20% of the total population.")

In fact, compare the BBC article with the equivalent article on the CBC. The CBC article uses terms like "settling in" and "choosing to make their hometown," and opting for phrases like "newcomers" and "residents born outside of Canada" rather than the somewhat blunt and clearly differentiating "foreign-born."

The immigrants immediately become Canadians, they are Canadians, they're not separate from us.

Not that the BBC article is bad or wrong by any means, I just find the difference in tone and approach interesting from a cultural perspective.

Bahaha

It's nice to see reporters for the BBC having a little fun at work. Here's a direct quote from one article:

"It says the tiny bitch was whisked away under an assumed name after receiving about 20 threats."

Intrigued? Read the rest of it here.

Michael Moore on Life in Norway

Props to Gwyneth for pointing this one out to me.



Seeing Vigelands Skulpturparken and Karl Johans gate made me smile.

This is what happens when I'm forced to write 7000 words in a formal, academic style with footnotes and other proper citations:

Here we all sit,
in our blue jeans.
Poring over books and notes and doodles we have left in the margins.
Like soldiers on a battlefield,
we bond over a shared sense of hardship:
the pressure of the next exam,
the stress of rewriting those final two pages.
It seems all too present now, yet I can't help but think that in 20 years we will barely remember these times.
20 years from now...

We are young, we are white, we are rich.
We are tomorrow's leaders (or so they keep telling us).
The guy on my left - where will he be 20 years from now?
How about the girl who just walked through the door?
Will we have accepted our responsibility as stewards of the planet?
Will we use our wealth and education to eradicate climate change and global poverty?
The realist, who is also called the pessimist, inside of me says "no, nothing will ever change."

But it's got to.
It's the only thing that keeps me going.
The potential to alter the course of human history with
Love and Grace.
and Hope.
Why am I alive if not for this purpose?

20 years from now...
I'm not entirely certain how the whole thing will roll out.
And frankly, I'm a little scared.
But I do know that it starts here,
sitting in my blue jeans.

Homosexuality

I've been working a lot at Lixian's place lately in an effort to finish my final essays for the semester. Tonight, she went to bed early but I stayed up chatting with her friends/roommates and eventually realized that I was alone in a room with 3 gay people (2 guys and a girl).

As I thought more about it I realized that, perhaps sadly, this was the largest number of homosexuals I'd ever knowingly been in a conversation with. They are all great people, and I will make an effort to get to know each of them better.

Story of my Life

6000 words til Thursday.
Party on Friday.
3000 more by next Wednesday.
Month off.

Addendum

Today I also came across this article about Canada's role in Afghanistan and thought it nicely complemented my previous post.

11-11-11

It's Rememberance Day. Or at least it is in Canada and the UK. I kinda forgot cuz they don't celebrate it here.

My friend Matt from back home suggested that I write something about it, so here it is. 'This Bud's for you.'


The point of Rememberance Day is to honour the veterans of wars. This is typically displayed by wearing a red poppy. The problem is, I don't believe in violence. I never asked anyone to harm another human being on my behalf, so for this reason I don't show visible support for such actions.

I recognize that this is a rather controversial view and as such, when discussing it in real life, I tend not to be as blunt as I was above. Nevertheless, people go on about how brave their relatives were and how if it weren't for them we'd all be speaking German right now. And maybe that's the case. For the record, my own grandfather served in World War II and had a shell land right beside him which damaged his hearing for the rest of his life. He died almost 10 years ago now, but I have a feeling he wouldn't agree with what I'm about to say either.

The thing is, I believe that when Jesus said "Love your neighbour," and more than that, "Love your enemies," he actually MEANT it. Not in a theoretical, abstract way but in a conclusive, down to earth fashion. And if this results in your personal subjugation or even destruction, well y'know what? There's more to existence than just this life. At least, I hope to God that there is. That's the whole point of martyrdom. It's not easy, and it's certainly not desirable, but I don't understand how followers of Christ can, in good conscience, harm or kill another child of God.

Violence is the least creative solution. It takes no imagination to punch someone in the face when I'm angry, but it takes much more creativity to work through problems and come up with a way that both parties can leave a conflict with a sense of justice and dignity. Where is that sense of inventiveness? Where is our compassion for our fellow human beings? Although it does not make it any more acceptable, I can see how in days past it would be quite easy to demonize the 'Other,' and see the enemy as less than human; but in our increasingly globalized world, now more than ever it is a travesty that people from one culture would want to kill people from another and not see them as brothers and sisters. Equality. and Love. We need to believe that love conquers all evil because if we lose that then we are hopeless as the human race. If we can't come up with a better solution than killing one another off then we might as well pack it all in right now.

Now, I recognize that after these comments a lot of people will think that I'm naive and idealistic, and I'm fine with that. To further add fuel to that particular fire, consider this: war is declared by countries but made by individuals. If soldiers chose to put down their guns, if pilots refused to get into their bombers, if the guy sitting in the base 5000km away didn't push the button to launch the cruise missiles, then war would cease to exist. I believe there are better alternatives, even if that means dying in a way that our culture considers inglorious. Because ultimately we aren't judged by our society, but by the Big One Upstairs. I don't see courage in blindly following an order that is handed down to you by a commanding officer; I see courage in those who challenge the existing norms and dare to dream of a brighter future for every single human being on this planet, which we all share together.

This is why I don't wear a red poppy on Rememberance Day.

From the ends of the earth

Last night I went to Chateau Neuf and sat through an hour and fifteen minute long interview with my favourite Norwegian author, Erlend Loe. The whole thing occurred in Norwegian, naturally, which made it a bit tedious (given that I understand almost no Norwegian), but I still think it was worth it! I got to chat with him a bit afterwards and got him to sign my copy of Naive. Super. (Which I told him was one of the best books I've ever read and he responded "Really?! Well that is nice to hear.") He was a gigantic man (nearly as tall as me!) and really soft-spoken. Not what I expected at all, but awesome nevertheless!

Now totally unrelated, check out this video of seven guys beatboxing on the subway, it's amazing! I need to give credit to Oria for bringing it to my attention. Almost better than the performance itself are the reactions of the passengers around them!



And actually, in many ways it reminds me of the folks at Improv Everywhere, which I have mentioned before and clearly think are fantastic.

Courtesy of Burlington, Ontario

My dear friend Matthew Nigel Howell sent me the following message on Facebook and I thought that it was too good to keep to myself. Thus I asked his permission to share it with the world, and permission was granted. So without further ado:

"Last night was 'devil's night', typically a great night of adrenaline and mischief for young folks. Jody and I were sitting in the living room, which has a rather large window with an unobstructed view right to the road (Drury Lane), watching TV when SPLAT, an egg appeared on the window. We arrived at the front door just in time to see a little red car drive off. Slightly bitter, more because in our old age we had let our devil's night guard down than because of the egg on the window, I stood out front with the hose washing the window off.
I then prepared for round 2, now realizing how tempting our window was, by placing a tomato near the front door so that we could return the favour to our next eggers.
About one hour latter the second SPLAT came and I was up and gone like a bat out of hell! I exited the front door with enough time to see two young souls turning down the side street (courtland).
Now let me intervine in this story and explain that the street they were parked on was a dead end... yes a dead end. So as I rounded the corner and stood in front of their car, enjoying the intense looks of fear on each face, they had nowhere to go. I menacingly signaled for them to exit the vehicle to no avail. Not realizing they were on a dead end they reversed down the entire street right to central park, only giving jody enough time to put his shoes on and join the fun.
The car returned trying one final time to make an escape but with my body planted in between their front bumper and freedom they knew I had won. Jody told them to get out of the car, which they did... well all of the girls at least, the little bastard boy (who I am sure up until this incident had been feeling like the 'cool guy' 'mr. badass' driving around town egging houses with a bunch of girls), the one who actually threw the egg stayed cowering in the back seat.
Any way we had a laugh with the girls (their friend thought I was going to 'kick the shit out of him' - I then told them how violent I tend to be... and then the girls thought we would call the cops, to which we responded " BAH HAHAHA ya right!"), as they cleaned the window we explained to them that you should never turn off your engine when egging a house, let alone park on a dead-end street, along with this we taught them the drive-by technique of just pulling to the side of the road opening a door firing an egg, hopping back in and driving away, as a much more effective means of egging a house.

Another lesson taught by Jod and Matty"

On Any Given Night...

My friend Oria has a game called "that's not normal!" and I think that I inadvertantly played a round tonight.

While waiting for the metro this evening at my student residence an African man walked by alone, then suddenly burst into some sweet, sweet karate moves (dangerously close to the track, I might add). They were so exuberant that it sent his mobile phone flying out onto the platform. After he was finished he said something to the Norwegian couple beside me, but I missed it because I had my headphones on. He then picked his phone up off the ground and continued to walk to the other end of the platform.

THAT'S NOT NORMAL!!!

Recap

I always forget how long the day is when you get up early. You would think I'd learn, but it surprises me every time.

This morning I got up at 8 in order to get my mom to the bus station in time to get a bus to the airport for her flight out this afternoon (she has been visiting for the past 9 days during which we took a trip to Finland!)

After waving goodbye I walked from the bus station to Lixian's place downtown. Lixian is probably the best friend I've made here, but I hadn't seen her in a couple weeks since she was away visiting friends in Sweden and then I was in Finland with my mom. We ate some breakfast, drank coffee and the discussed our respective trips. At 11:45 there was a student demonstration across the street, so we went to check that out. There were a few hundred students there listening to someone passionately shouting into a microphone, but not being able to understand Norwegian, we left pretty shortly afterward. We then went to go pick up -- oh I forgot to mention this...while hanging out after breakfast we decided to get tickets to go see Jose Gonzales in Oslo on December 13th! So we put in an order then went to the Post Office to collect them (ha! take THAT ticketmaster service charge!!)

It was a nice day out so next we decided to head to the cemetery. I'm not sure what it's called, but it must be Norway's national cemetery or something since Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Munch (along with many others) are buried there. Lixian was excited to see dry leaves on the ground since apparently in Vancouver it's too wet to ever play in piles of leaves. Me, being the experienced leaf player, kicked up a sizeable amount and then dove head-first into them. Lixian followed suit, and then afterwards we just laid there with out heads sticking out above our respective leaf piles and chatted about life (we got a couple of menacing looks from the workers whose job it was to rake/blow the leaves into piles, but I don't feel too bad about it).

I don't think I'm describing this very artfully (I definitely overused the words 'leaf' and 'pile' in that last paragraph), but it was a great moment. At one point I thought to myself "I'm laying in a pile of leaves in OSLO, the sun is shining, and I'm talking to a good friend -- yes, this is my life!" After chatting for a while we headed back to her place, said goodbye and went our separate ways. I grabbed a kebab before hopping on the metro and heading home for a nap. Someone smart once said "Bed's are best appreciated after a night away." It having been NINE nights since I had last slept in mine, you can only imagine how good the nap was.

Humanity is Awesome

I hope we don't become extinct.

My Faculty Building

I've been meaning to take some photos of the art project in the lobby of my faculty building for a while now, but always forget. Then I remembered that Erin took some while she was here, and that I still have her photos on my computer, so I'll just use them (without her permission!)

The piece is made up of a bunch of individual tiles with all sorts of different text/images on them.

Some highlights spray-painted across it all include: Gud er kvinne (God is a woman), Alle vil til himmelen men ingen vil dø (Everyone wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die), Live until you die, and The wall is in your mind.

I have no idea who created this but I love seeing it on my way to class each day...

Posterity

For the sake of accuracy in journalism, I will admit that I forgot to include the following:

• Laundry Access Card

That is all.