Do you have any rubber walrus protectors??

Call the poleeeeeece!

This post is a collection of short stories bearing little to no relation to one another.

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Yesterday I attempted to cook an improvised Thai-style stir fry with beef, basil, cashew nuts, and so forth. But in my haste at the supermarket, I accidentally bought sjömansbiff (translation: sailor's beef, heavily salted, kinda like corned beef) instead of regular off-the-cow beef.

Ian's Words of Wisdom: One of the difficult things about living in a country that speaks a different language is that lots of stuff has different names.

I realised this just as I was browning the onions on a medium heat, but decided to strengthen my resolve and press ahead with the recipe regardless. It actually turned out tolerable, in spite of the beef being tougher and saltier than blackbeard himself.

I may, in fact, have inadvertantly cooked Swedish-style Thai-style beef. On my birthday last week, one of the ladies at work gave me a sample of a Swedish delicacy, salted elk. Actually, that's an understatement - I'd rather describe it as a big hunk of salt which had been lightly elked.

(Old joke format, I know, but if the Beastie Boys can still use it, so can I. Also, I think it's worth it just to introduce the verb "to elk". Future history books will remember me as: Turn of the century millionaire philanthropist and raconteur, most famous for making his fortune by tripping over the worlds largest gold nugget whilst studying in Sweden, for giving the song Yummy yummy yummy I've got love in my tummy the deeply sinister connotations it now has, and for championing the now common verb form of the word "elk", chiefly used in the preparation of foodstuffs.)

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Interesting tidbit: Almost everything I write on this blog, I think of in the shower as I clamber out of the dreamy sleepytime gorilla museum. That means: if there's ever a movie made about my life as a blog-writer, there'll be lots of shower scenes, and that's good news for the ladies!

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If you look at your jeans, chances are on the inside-leg, running from ankle to apex, there is a double-line of stitching holding the front of the trouser to the back. The outer thread completely vanished from my jeans the other day, leaving just a single line of defense against the possibility of sudden and uncontrollable indecent exposure. That's more good news for the ladies, but not for me, as it's getting down to -15 degrees at night now, and the cold wind should be kept out of the trouser region at all costs.

I'm very dissapointed with Levi Strauss & Co Quality Clothing, as they are less than a year old and previous pairs have lasted me much longer. I'm hoping they'll hold out til I get back to oz in January, as clothing is quite pricey here.

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Go here to watch videos from the US tour of Norwegian band "Hurratorpedo". Their schtick is to play fairly standard rock and roll, but also smash kitchen appliances on stage. The videos are quite funny, I recommend the one where the band breaks up.

Actually, the best one is on this page, their first gig in america.... at a little girl's birthday party.

Øyvind has seen them play in Trondheim, sez they're a laff. The tall guy is also famous in Norway for various Jackass/Supersizeme-esque stunts, such as sitting a shop window for a week trying to live as unhealthily as possible. Drinking a whole litre of strong espresso, then eating nothing but pure lard for days, and so on.

Schopenhauer sez martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability, but clearly in modern times you needn't actually die, just do some damage.