I just saw an episode of the nightmarish telly show Seventh Heaven in my increasingly delicate post weekend mental state; it really shook me to my very core. I’ve seen the Teen Choice awards and other brainless entertainment where the actors, producers and directors of this hellish Bush-love inducing rubbish were acclaimed by tweens and teens throughout America way back when (1996-2007), but the nightmare is over. This is why it kills me to see the ill-conceived message of this grotesque show with a Messiah-complex still ballsing up our innocent Norwegian screens. If they don’t buy the last horrid seasons of That 70s Show they really don’t need the last seasons of this.

In the episode I encountered the future-doctor-son of the family has decided to find a wife (purely out of sexual frustration I presume), from what the show want us to think is momentary insanity (induced by living in a house lead by overly religious bunny-humping parents with the same views about the satanic condom as the Pope). He finds a lovely future-doctor-daughter of a Rabbi and the comedy presents itself. They like each other, they both like the Republican Party (however in a reversed Adam and Eve fashion where Adam took a bite of the treacherous apple first), they’re both overly religious and are both preposterously attractive.
However perfect this matrimonial match might seem, the show consists of the Jewish parents who protest against the inter-religious marriage, whilst maintaining how wonderful this goy-boy is in spite of his gentile ways and the Christian parents obviously taking the high road and “genuinely” pretending it’s an obstacle, but not a hindrance.
That’s some pretty obvious anti-Semitic ball-bag for any television program, not to say the least of a family show seen by millions of doe-eyed preachers daughters!
It continues with a restaurant conversation about sex… “Lets talk about sex until we get married and can actually practise the devious act” might not be a quote, but is the gist of the sexually brimming conversation which again is about as ill-conceived for tween telly as the Pope and George Bush blundering about in Africa saying that the condom is the rapping-paper of Beelzebubs throbbing truncheon of doom.

Why do we even have a show like Seventh Heaven on Norwegian television? I can’t begin to understand who can relate to a show like this here. Having lived in a racially segregated, hateful and morbidly obese part of rural America, I have seen the people who seem to think that watching a show of this nature fulfils their religious needs as well as reading the Bible would, but please put something else on TV2. MacGyver is a much better choice for the unemployed slot in the TV schedule and I know TV2 has it hidden somewhere in their stuffy basement… I only have four channels, give us a break will you!

I will refrain from watching it again and if I have to, I will never again drink heavily on a day that might give me a hangover of TV watching magnitude!


Lets compare...

Shocking resemblance aside, compare that many seasons of THAT show with a magazine from the intrusive but harmless Jehova's Witnesses and tell me which you find more intrusive in your life...

Sampai Jumpa and may you be blissfully unaware of what happens in Seventh Heaven!

Siren

"I like" outrage...!

As I sit cradling my ancient and massive laptop like a crazed, paedophile shopping centre Santa, inappropriately fiddling the immaculately tuned kids…KEYS I’ve gotten to know over the years; suddenly realizing that my mind is being poisoned by the all too familiar background droning of Hotel Cæsars dribbling, badly written characters(mute, sweet relief!), I start to ponder the addictive nature of technology and my own paradoxical relationship with it.

I will freely admit that I’m technologically retarded, somewhat by choice, but mostly as a result of my lack of understanding towards even the fundamental workings of anything one might power by the help of an electric socket.

I stubbornly claim to prefer the finger blackening feel of a newspaper, but still I spend more time reading the ever-updated online versions as not to dent my economic state. I also claim not to use any of the mind-boggling extra features you find on a mobile phone, but I refuse to go back the medieval times of the landline telephone. I Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Blog, but I don’t understand how it works.
I like knowing and understanding things, even trivial things like the name of the earth’s second moon, 3753 Cruithne or that a ducks quack does not echo. Sadly, not everything is worth knowing as I learnt after some brief wikipedia’ing about the internet. I came to the conclusion that technological ignorance sometimes actually is bliss.

Think about the origins of the internet for example: The internet was created by the military as a tool for their evildoings; luckily nobody cared. Then the universities started using the internet as an instrument for sharing information; sadly no one cared about this either. Finally the sleazebags of the world found that the internet could be the perspiring future of porn and suddenly everyone was interested and the internet as we know it was expeditiously created. Behold the power of boobs!

Now I spend a nauseating amount of time on our favourite cyber-pastime-doodle-playground Facebook and this is where my fickle pondering saw its origin today.
As a result of some novel-induced Orwellian discomfort and a sudden realization of the bone-chilling solitude living alone can forsooth be; I reluctantly chose to utter my despair in a Facebook status update: Siren Løkaas needs a hug.
Fully aware of my own reactions to status updates of this nature, I somewhat expected people to ignore it completely, but I had forgotten about the newish lazy-mans “I like” button on the page. That was what my emotionally charged, status-update lapse of facebook-judgement got me; an unexplained “I like.”

Why must everything be made so easy, quick and emotionless?

Hare Krishna

Siren

The tale of the exploding earlobes

This is a gruesome foray into the incredibly weird universe that is my body. There are immeasurable amounts of stories to be told about this still young body, but this latest one is the most unnerving I’ve bared witness to, by mirror and feeling, in a quite some time. It got to the point of me wishing I still lived the apartment by the river of constant police-sirens and shootings, but sadly I moved out foreseeing that the police would make it their drugs-espionage headquarters soon, hence I can only re-enact it in written form and I have no witnesses.
On that note; I know I’ve neglected this blog for almost a week now, but I have a good excuse: I’m a lazy cunt, so get stuffed..

What cannot be more than a fortnight ago I obtusely decided to start enhancing the size of my earring-holes, for no other reason than to wear the earrings I bought at last years Roskilde Festival. The number of times I would wear them after putting myself through excruciating lobe-pain can only be assumed, but consumerism dictates me not to wear something longer than a firefly lives.
As I’ve stated before, I’m not the brightest of people and thus did not “read the instructions” of proper lobe-hole enhancement techniques. One is supposed to slowly and steadily push the earrings through the holes, from smallest to thickest over a course of days, if not weeks. I however closed my eyes tight, made a “this is going to hurt like a distressed kittens cry”-face and pushed the first earring through in one painful jab. I stood numbed by pain for what felt like hours. This was the first time I understood that the earlobe is not something to mock about with. Unfortunately the pain did not stop me from jabbing my other earlobe as well; I might not take delight in pain, but I was sure as hell not going to end up with uneven earlobes!

I withstood constant pain for two whole days. I could not get dressed, shower, sleep or shake my head with any particular force without weeping silently during and to the memory of the pain-hoopla. I’m still proud of lasting two days of this self torture, even though I’m already enduring comically tight pants, uncomfortable shoes and obscene amounts of make-up choking my skin.

Even though I’d given up the idea of lobe-hole extension I could not leave them alone for move than a few hours. I can’t be seen in public without the appropriate accessories! This led to a decision of a wonderful pair of earrings to wear while the stud-holes recovered and grew together again as they once where.

I had worn these earrings of pure vintage beauty with some discomfort for a few days when I woke up Sunday morning on an unfamiliar mattress on the floor of a flat in Grünerløkka. I of course fled the scene quietly and made my way home dizzily in what can only be describes as a walk of shame. My stockings ripped, my shorts suddenly seeming shorter than the day before, cars honking as they drove by and my eyes taking an awful long time growing accustomed to daylight. The Cocio on the other hand was palatable…

When I finally crashed down onto my bed I noticed that there was a substantial accretion of earlobe pain. I had no palpable explanation for this augment of pain suitable for my already bewildered brain-box, so I decided to pop the earrings out and give my earlobes some well deserved peace as not to have pain competing with my already throbbing head. I quickly and painfully removed the earrings to instant relief, but this relief was short-lived. I felt a sudden flow of something wet and unnerving running down my neck; I touched the neck-rivers and sure enough, as I looked at my fingers they were covered in blood. Blood from my earlobes, now bleeding profusely as a result of its newfangled naked freedom. I got up and stood in front of the mirror in awe of the magnitude of blood those little holes beheld inside them until I got a little dizzy and stopped the bleeding.

I can only hit myself on the front of my head and yell “GET SMARTER” about this and many other aspects of my life, but maybe this has been a learning experience for some of you… reader… and I’ll keep living what seems like a collection of amusing anecdotes and shameful stumbles until I actually get smarter!

Hare Krishna

Siren

Lets make fun of the Bible!

I’m feeling a wondrous spirituality bubbling in my boyish frame today. This might come as a surprise to some of you, seeing as how I have certainly mocked religion enough in my time. Maybe the reason for this sudden burst of worthless doctrine curiosity is the sound of the Top Gear lads beaming with dim-witted middle aged car-fancy from my telly, or perhaps it’s the overwhelming boredom of having nothing else to watch on the four channels my current financial state allows me, than a repeat of fat, greying, comically proportioned men cocking everything up…on purpose…in cars… I don’t even have a fucking drivers licence!

Growing up in a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses I’ve been lucky enough to read the Bible; numerous times. But even in a time in my life where I was increasingly susceptible to brainwashing of any kind, (I had Pogs, the Spice girls photo albums, the blue eye-liner and the “let’s go smoke behind the school” coolness) I could still sense that some of the Bible was just a smidgeon far-fetched… Until, of course, I found that the Bible also has a different name: The Gospel, which means infallible truth. Well then, that’s settled, screw you Darwin!

Let us then look a little closer at this “infallible truth,” not all of it of course, but the funny bits: creation!
1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
How? What did you do? Snap your fingers, do a little jig and there it was? Do you have fingers? Who the hell are you? Are you saying that were too stupid to understand the ways of God in this lack of detail? Then why didn’t you just make us smarter? I could have had a life without walking into glass doors, bumping my head on the car roof every time I get in or out and drinking to much!
3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
What?! You created the heaven and the earth in the dark? Not so smart now then, stumbling around in the universe, pretending that it only took seven days to make it all, but really you spent ages stumbling around in an eternal darkness, waving your arms around like a confused blind cripple trying to find his way back to the wheelchair some little “miracle” moved to the other side of the traffic-riddled street, trying to find what you just created.
4: And God saw the light, that it was good
Every one wants to be their own critic…

I feel I am being a little flippant and disrespectful about these divine scribblings of men undergoing a schizophrenic discourse with a deity to explain our presence here on earth; but why would a supreme being create the Garden of Eden where man, woman, plant and animal could live in perfect harmony only to create a tree you’ll die from eating of and an evil blabbermouth-snake whose sole purpose is to reek havoc and gain power? It’s an accident waiting to happen and moreover, it’s a snake, just kick it out! You created it!
Where was God when snakey-boy persuaded Eve to eat from the tree anyway? Did he pop out for a fag? Take an ill-timed nap?
It almost seems like God made it all happen for fun. This is where we got the idea for reality television, someone with too much power puts innocent people in an impossible situation and watch them making complete twats of themselves.

At least God took the moral high ground and punished them for his own creative mistakes… Adam has to work and sweat in the fields and Eve is bestowed pain and sorrow in childbirth and they will both die at some point. Not ideal, but its something we humans can live with. The snake on the other hand, the one who started it all with his evil ways and serpents persuasive tongue and who was probably expecting the ass-whooping of a lifetime. What was his extravagant and somewhat irksome punishment? "Upon thy belly shalt thou go…" IT’S A SNAKE! He’s already on his belly, it’s one of the paradigmatic characteristics of a snake to be ON HIS BELLY…

I think I might be feeling something other than Christian spirituality and that I should stop writing before I get killed. It might be to late, but Moses is just making it to easy to mock in this superficial way!

Hare Chrishna

Siren

Woest me, my mobile did a wee!

I’ve always thought myself a good-natured friend and allie to technology. I have never once laughed at the one-armed robots to whom we owe our cars, or the handicap-seat/elevator/rollercoaster thing one might install where stairs and old ladies collide.

Although I see the enormous benefits of technology in every aspect of society; I do find myself thinking “I don’t give a fuck, mate…” when my father insists on explaining to me the technological advances in the world of busses, in an insanely detailed and repetitive fashion. Not to mention the sordid “advances” I had to learn and teach whilst working at the local grocer in my old neighbourhood.
I was all but ecstatic the day I came in to work in the morning, only to find a sharply dressed IT man about my age with stylish raven hair, but with a growth of what looked like a grey blob of afro on the side of his head (sadly I noticed this whilst carrying a bucket of water and a mop, non of which I managed to hold on to after he turned his head; he really looked like he had Don King bursting out of his brainbox!). This raven-haired mutant alien-carrier was there to install a new system in the PiB (local in store post office). This all happened about three weeks before my last day of work, but I still had to learn all that complicated asparagus and of course the IT man was there not only to install, but also to teach us poor retarded parrots how to use it. Tall as I am I spent two hours with Don Kings grey mop right in my eye line. Needless to say more than a few packages went missing those last weeks I worked there…

The reason I’m pondering the world of science and technology is that apparently they have all turned against me in an uproar of (the)Matrixian proportions. Tuesday last, I found myself penniless and thought I’d transfer some funds from my second account onto the account with a visa card attached to it. This is to me an everyday occurrence and therefore I could not comprehend the feeling of impending doom I felt deep within my seventh chakra. I stuck the masculine chip off my visa card into the feminine slot off my magic bank-code-creator-keychain-thingy and waited for the two to start the process of creating new life. However, the female part of the lovemaking equation had sadly perished in an untimely manner not yet explained.

“What the hell do I do now?” An understandable outburst I hope you’ll find. Luckily a sudden shock of brain activity led me to remember my MasterCard, but not the code to my MasterCard… As I cursed my memory space, that can only be described as being goldfishesq, I frantically dialled the number for my banks helpline. The soothing sound of jazz played off a cassette in a tunnel, calmed me down as I sat there with the mobile to my ear looking at the laptop screen, where my banks login page mocked me silently.
Dooo-bop-bop-a-diiiii-daaaaaaaaoooooow-bop-dooo-da
A friendly voice welcomed me to the helpline, I didn’t catch her name, but no matter, I was finally in the land of stupid questions and tolerant bankers. I told her my problem and she solved it easily: transferred money and sent me a new keychain!

But now I was late! I cursed the retched keychain and ran out the door, doing an improvised Bambi-like dance routine on the icy surface that make up the streets of Oslo, wearing ill-advised cowboy boots made for an American desert.

I of course made a grand entrance at Chateu Neuf, but found that I was the first to arrive. “Well, nothing to it! I will call them and let them no I’m here.” No, I fucking wouldn’t! As the second part of technology’s evil plan came to play. My mobile phone had had an aneurysm and was now blipping, slobbering dead weight I my pocket. I had to just stand there until they came, like a sad little dog, tied to a bicycle outside a shop..

What did we do before we had the mobile phone? I can remember the days before the mobile, when we called each others houses and made plans to meet up somewhere. Back then you just had to be there and hope that the other person would show up; or else, you just had to fucking go home…
As I write this I keep thinking that the pre-mobile phone era wasn’t even that long ago and yet I feel like I’m speaking of a grander time when mother went to the river for drinking water, grandfather smoked a pipe and couldn’t read, father did the mans' work around the farm and us children took our Shetland ponies for a three hour joyride to the nearest merchant to spend our hard earned penny on a new dress!

I will probably never stop squawking in anguish, like a frightened Emu just realizing that her wings don’t really serve a purpose, every time I try to use an Apple appliance, but I mean no harm by my ignorance and I will do better! Please just leave my new phone alone…

Sampai Jumpa and for God's sake: gratefully say a sincere "thank you" the next time a traffic light bestows a green man of walking upon you!

Siren

Weight, what a throbbing pimple on my buttock!

I’ve always found that people, in general are utterly fascinated by a persons weight. Sadly I am no different. I often think myself abundant of what you might call distinctiveness. This in turn begets a unique feeling of individuality, but in fact I’m nothing if not a flaming conformist! My style of clothing ultimately comes from observation, people on the streets, fashion magazines, television and wherever else one might find inspiration. The style in which I transfer my ideas onto this blog is inspired, if not a blatant facsimile of the things I have read. This is an utterly terrifying thought, but not the main focus of today’s blog. Although… it could be; oh the possibilities! I’m drunk with power, killing ants with a magnifying glass, scribbling obscenities on the tester Etch-A-Sketch in the toy store, repositioning strangers’ clothes from one locker to another at the gym, muhahahahhaa!

My weight has generously given my family and myself an abundance of grief over the years. From the years of the obligatory weighing at primary school, where I constantly came as a superb winner in the height section and as the underweight mutant, how-does-she-even-walk-around, freak of the weight scale for children of my age. There was always an undertone of judgement in the nurses questions and recommendations for what my parents should do to “help” me. I can humorously (in retrospect) ponder the things that that poor nurse must have thought of my parents; the slightly obese, sadistic cult members giving their child nothing but Jehovah’s flatbread, air and the occasional drop of water to eat.
Luckily there was never the need for a social-worker to pop around our house because this skinny little freak could through a tennis ball further than any of the boys in her class!

I’ve always contently thought that my weight fits my personality, but with a constant sort of subconscious “chicken or the egg” question nagging at me. Whilst my concious mind sings “I’d rather have a bowl of Coco Puffs” (Seriously, its like the screensavers of my brain) my very essence ponders the question: is my destructive nature, nervousness and need be noticed the cause of my eating habits and thus the reason for my weight; or is it not a conscious choice from my side and consequently I developed my personality as a result of my fondness of making people laugh and the universal fact that long skinny limbs can be hilarious in something like a silly walk (incidentally, I do a pretty mean silly walk) and such? I really can’t figure this out!
I do have a very thin older brother to compare myself to, but his silly walk is nought but crap and he couldn’t give two shits about anyone. I hope someday to gain weight so that I can see if my personality changes, maybe I’ll even grow gargantuan bosoms and stop being funny altogether…

I’ve always gone to very average sized schools. Not in size of the schools, but the size of the people attending them; shockingly “normal” if you will. I don’t at all think that this helped someone like me whom, if dressed in green might be misconceived to be an abnormally large stick insect, or just a stick if standing still.
At one point in my educational process there was a rumour at my school that I had had a metal rod planted in my spine to help me stand up straight; and during my year of highschool I was constantly followed around by staff and “hired help” (teachers-pets) whom had the responsibility of checking my eating habits. I felt like a rare bird, or that whale that swam up the Thames that time. I did gain 12kilos that year so I guess they could call themselves a success… no wait, ALL AMERICAN CAFETERIA FOOD IS MADE FROM PURE SATURATED FAT!

My experience as unusually underweight has taught me that it is very annoying to be unusually underweight. No one asks the question on every ones mind: “Do you have an eating disorder?”
Because, as the telly has taught us, the first rule of eating disorders is that people who have them lie about having them. Therefore people of average weight assume. Since they have no way of proving if this assumption is true or false, they just believe their assumption. Your too thin therefore you have an eating disorder, somewhat like I can’t explain this therefore it’s the work of a benevolent spirit in the heavens. Incidentally I find them both preposterous…

Let the fatties eat their half melted snickers bars found between the fatflaps of their stomachs and let the underweighties walk the catwalk, snort cocaine and “eat” black coffee to stay upright! Natural selection…

Sampai Jumpa, blissfully live your lives and be less of a bitch than I am;)

Siren

I’m going to be an aunt!!

Yesterday I found myself in my literature class, sitting next to a woman closer to death than life; honestly, every time she moved, even the slightest movement of a pen scribble, I would be overwhelmed by a wave of the ancient stench of death. It struck me that this must be what a vampire smells like. I would have run screaming from the room if it wasn’t for the soothing ticking of my watch; It reassured me that it was 11am and even an paranoid idiot like myself knows that vampires can’t attend morning classes!

The graying, age-appropriately dressed professor of something I couldn’t care less about was droning on and fucking oooon about Dante’s “Commedia Divina” and reading us passages from it in a sort of old Tuscan dialect. Needless to say this was why my mind wandered to the realms of vampires and old dead people. I really tried to listen, but the world had turned against me! Old people smell AND a sort of crow tragedy playing out right outside the window. Somewhat like a feathered Romeo and Juliet, there was a dead crow neatly placed on top of the heavenly layer of snow and another crow bopping about around it screaming its little crow head off as if this was the most horrendous event in crow history. Although, it might be; they might not have had the pleasure of a crow-Hitler…
“WHY, why? The mother of my eggs!”

As my pondering continued I found, to my surprise, that my left leg was vibrating slightly. Luckily it was just my mobile phone wobbling around in my trouser pocket like a poor, rejected, middle child yet again left to fend for itself in the isles of the local shop.
I turned my mobile off and offered it no further thought until I was finally let out of the Danteian prison of professor bore-me-to-death.
Mobile in hand I did a little bodybop-jig to celebrate my newfound freedom and met up with my inconsistent study group at one the finer establishments for fine dining found on our campus, Fredrikke.

“+61? What part of the world has that area code?” Was all my mind could conger up of information from my modern walkie-talkie machine. It did however spark a lively discussion about phone salesmen and how much everyone hates them, including themselves.

At this point you might be thinking: Get to the fucking point you self-indulgent wanker! (Good point well made…)

My mum telephoned today to tell me the good news: My destiny as the crazed Norwegian auntie, knitting lusekofter and sending any moose, Viking or mountain/fjord inspired baby paraphernalia to my forty year-old brother in Australia will finally be realized! His girlfriend is pregnant. My mum cry-giggling whilst telling me how she never thought the day would come, all the while I was thinking that I was sure they day would have come eventually when a slightly less ecstatic me would convey to her what last weeks drunken debauchery had created in my uterus…

Anyway, we cried, we laughed, I did another bodybop-jig and now I’m going to be an aunt! If that wasn’t enough, I now finally have a legitimate excuse to cajole my parents into paying my way to Australia.

I congratulated them using my poetic missive of choice, an e-mail!


Sampai Jumpa and eternal bliss to you all

Siren