I am not an accordion hater. To me there is nothing inherently wrong with accordion music in itself, but like so many things, an accordion can be used improperly and for nefarious purposes. I’ve been a sappy sentimental tourist in Europe before, and I vaguely (but fondly) remember the first time I heard someone playing [...]
I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about Eurovision by this point, but last year I started a tradition, and darnit, I’m sticking with it! It’s time to announce the 2010 winners of the Eurovision WTF awards! But first, since I have a large American audience that has the misfortune to not watch Eurovision, I’d [...]
As proud as we were of Alexander Rybak when Norway shattered the Eurovision record last year, the thing I was most excited about was that it meant Norway would be hosting the contest this year! Since Henrik and Cassie first introduced me to Eurovision our first year here, I’ve loved the whole phenomenon. I even [...]
Saturday was a very exciting day for Lucas, as he finally made the electronics purchase he’s been considering for years. He has a big television, and he has an iPhone, and he has all kinds of other gadgets, so what has he been longing for all this time? A record player! My hearing isn’t fine-tuned [...]
In case you live under a rock (or outside the US), last night was the Superbowl. That’s a big American football game that everyone watches, even if they’re not into sports. Normally I don’t really care about it, but this year the two teams playing were the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints. Given [...]
Over the weekend, Lucas shared with me the Random Awesome Album Generator algorithm, which does a surprisingly good job at creating a random band name and debut album, based on the oh-so-fabulous Wikipedia RandomPost function: Band Name – The tile of this article Album Title – The last four words of the very last quote [...]
Lucas and I quote stand-up comedy the same way some people quote movie lines! (Okay, I admit I quote movie lines, too…) In case you haven’t seen them, here are links to a few things that we watched when Erin & Mike were here: Stephen Lynch Nothing like getting a comedy singer stuck in your [...]
Our apartment is right across the street from the Frognerbadet swimming pool, which means that normally we have a nice view to Vigelands Park. Yesterday, when we came home, instead of the long lines of families waiting to get into the pool (the temperature here has been up around 30°C), there were equipment vans and roadies [...]
(Click here for a larger copy before you strain your eyes!) Lucas sent me this Pearls Before Swine strip this morning, which was a delightful bit of college nostalgia. Aside from grand educational pursuits, college seems to be the time for pursuing other, more meaningless studies, and for us it was learning the complete lyrics [...]
On Saturday we went shopping for a silk carpet to help use up our $1000 house-furnishing allowance and ended up picking out two that we like. We plan to pick them up today, because we need to go to the bank to withdraw enough cash to cover it. Afterward, we went for lunch at Alameda, [...]