the BLOGETTE

Last week I did a feature post on "My Kafkaesque Life", and today it's time to do another feature. There are so many great blogs which I love to read, so I have many to choose from for this, my second edition of Feature Friday. But today I wish to feature one the first blogs I became a regular reader of, one of the first blogs I ever commented on, and first blogger who ever commented on the blogette.

Amber is the amazing woman behind Mommy Mania. I first noticed her because she lived in Ohio, a state I lived in for a year. And then I came to love her blog because she is brutally honest, and doesn't hold back on anything. These type of personal blogs really are my favorite. I'm a sucker for reality TV, just because I love to see how real people think and how real people react inany given situation. For me blogs offers a wonderful oppertunity not only to learn about different cultures and different parts of the world, but to actually se it through someone elses eyes. I love that, and Amber gives you that on Mommy Mania.

This past 6 months have been extremly hard on Amber. She had to move from Ohio and to her home country Canada, and move in with her parents. Can you imagine moving your whole family (husband and two sons) into your parents home? And Amber have some horrfic experiences from her childhood which I would think makes the return to Canada even harder. She is so brave to share her pain on her blog, I really admire her for that. She is also incredibly brave in searching for answers. Maybe someone can pull some strenght from her's.

If you are not a follower of Mommy Mania, you are missing out.

I hate telephonemarketers. Who is with me? I suspect everyone.

I'm extremly bothered by these people. They call me everyday, sometimes more then once. Sometimes even from the same place to sell the same thing, just minutes after one of their co workers. It so annoying.



Most of the times I manage to be polite. A lot of times I'll just hang up. And then there is the times where I completly go off on them. Yes, I realize they are just doing their job. I feel bad when I think about how they are probably just teenagers. What teenager hasn't had this crappy job at one point? Even I did it for 2-3 months when I was 16. It ws horrible being yelled at all the time just for doing my job. I quit because I hated it so much.

But the after a period of beeing hasseled by them day after day, and when they are uable to take no for an answer and are pushy, I can be a Bitch with a caital B.

Not Derek. He has a different approach. He's all sweet and nice.

Telephonemarketer: "Hi! Are you intrested in receiving three dvd'd for free?".Derek: "It's completly free?"
Telephonemarketer: "Yes, it's free".
Derek: " Then of course I'm intrested!".
Telephonemarketer: " Well, you're in luck because abcmovie club are giving away three blockbuster movie titles to all new members".
Derek: "Great!".
elephonemarketer: " You can choose films from our list which contains over 100o titles! When you get the first member magazine, just send back the slip with the movies you want".
Derek: "Awesome!".
Telephonemarketer: "I will. All you have to go to abcmovieclub.com, sign up and pay the membership fee of €7,5 and we will send you the magazine".
Derek: "I thought you said it was free".
Telehonemarketer: "It is free. Three movies".
Derek: "So no fee?".
Telephonemarketer: "Well you have to pay the memebership fee to get the free dvds."
Derek: "Well then it's not free."
Telephonemarketer: "Yes it is free! You just have to pay for the membership."
Derek: "But if I have to pay, then it's not free".

It goes on like this. Derek love it! He laugh and laugh, and have the best time ever discussing with these people. I don't care, he can have his fun and if the telephonemarketer isn't smart enough to relize after 30 minutes that he's not going to make a sale here and stay on the line, well then that's his problem.

But, I don't get why Derek can spend up to an hour on the phone with a complete stranger! I asked him a million times why he bothers. He says that it's fun not only getting them to contradict themselves, but to hear their salepitch. He claims that he has never heard any of them make a good pitch, but if he ever were then he would buy what they were selling no matter what is. Well, of course he haven't heard a goog pitch and he won't, they are teenagers!

Is this a boy thing? Am I weird for not getting it? Is it fun to torment these annoying

One of my favorite TV shows is a norwegian one called "Young Mothers". It follows a group of mothers in their late teens who have babies or who are pregnant. I don't know why I love this show so much. A lot of the mothers show some outrages behavior. But it's pretty clear that the film people choose when to follow the mothers, and ovbiously it's good TV to see these mothers drunk and out of the town.

Friday night I was feeling a bit under the weather, and was watching TV all night. On channel they were showing "Ghost Ship", which I watched abit of but not all since horror movies scare the living daylight out of me. Later on another channel showed "The birdcage", which I love so of course I watched that to! And I guess these two movies snuck in my subconscious somehow because that night I had one intresting dream!!

For the first time ever I had a dream where I was faced with an ethical dilema. I was on a big boat (ghost ship) with two gay men (birdcage). There was a lot of stuff going on, nothingto exciting really. Then, there was some sort of accident and the ship started sinking. There was complete chaos. All of sudden it was me,the gay couple, and a few other people in a life boat far away from the sinking ship. We sit there and see the ship go down and see all the people in the water around it.

We are only 6-7 people in the lifeboat with rooms 50-60, so we want to go back and get people out of the ocean. Then it hits us. There probably 700 people in the water who all are fighting for their life and want to live. And they are all cluttered. If we go back, more people then what the life boat can hold will try to climb in. And it's a small lifeboat, it won't be hard to climb in. If the boat has to many passangers, it will sink.

What do do? In the dream we just sit their and discuss it. Should we take a chance on rowing into the clutter of all the people laying the water and get the first 50 we see? And hope that we can row away without all the people we don't have room for clawing onto the boat and making it sink and by doing so leaving us to drown to? Or just sit there and do nothing, and at least be confident in our own survival?

My dream ends about there. We never decide. I been thinking about it, and I'm still not sure what I would do. In the dream it seems impossible to go and get only some people. Obviously the people in the water, who is staring death in the eye, won't care about how many people the lifeboat can hold.

What would you do?

Working my way through google reader, I came across this happy post ! Thank you Meagan for thinking of me. I love getting awards, it's so nice to to get this kind of attetion from fellow bloggers!

The rules of the award demands that you share 7 things about yourself and then pass it on to 7 other bloggers. First things first, here are 7 facts about me that you may or may not already know.

1. I recently discovered color sorting and I love it! I did it to my books and dvds. It looks so much neater in my shelves. First I thought it would be hard to find a spesific book when it's not alphabetical, but that's not the case at all. It's much easier to remember the color of the cover then the name of the author. But the best part is that it looks si much nicer!!
   


2. Meagan is obsessed with all things pink, and I'm obsessed with all things pink. Still, I don't have a lot of pink! It's my dream to have more pink objects, but where are they?
   


3. Even though I'm Norwegian, I don't enjoy skiing. I'll go cross country to please people, but I hate it. Downhill and slaalom, I can't be bothered to pay the fee to use the facilities.
   


4. I wish I enjoyed skiing because I can see how much joy it bring to everybody. This spring Derek is going to Zermatt to skii, I could have gone to but who want's to spend that kind of money when your skiing abillities are limited? Zermatt is one of the most expensive places in the Alps. I since I have skiied alot, I owuldn't be able to participate in what they are doing. They are going to the helicopter drop and everything.
   


5. I'm a huge animal lover and I wish I could have a farm filled with all animals, that of course would never be slaughtered. Besides from dog, I'm especially weak for pigs. They are adorable! Did you know that a pig is smartes and has more understanding of what happens around it then a 3 year old kid? That's why they scream when they know they are going to the slaughter house..They know what's coming.
   


6. I'm very competitive and often end up in embarrasing myself because of it.
   


7. As I'm writing this, Percy is lying next to me having a very vivid deam appearantly! He's kicking away!

Hope you enjoyed that! So, now it's time to pass this award, the KREATIV BLOGGER award on. Since kreativ is the norwegian word for creative, I'm going to be creativ with it and change it up a bit!

I've seen so many awards who ask you to list things about yourselves, and I think most the blogs I visit has done this at one point. I have also noticed that there is a new tag going around which I think is extremly fun. It calls for the blogger to display 7 things from his or hers house/room/living space of a certain color. So, instead of listing 7 facts about yourself, show me 7 things from your place in the color I'll assign you!

I hereby present this award to... (insert drumroll here!!) :

1. Litle Insomniac Lolita : HOT RED
   


2. Life of Leetid : PRETTY PURPLE
   


3. Life or Something Like It: PERFECT PINK
   


4. Musings of the Corybantic Painted Fingernails: SWEET YELLOW
   


5. Pink Julep: BABY BLUE
   


6. Rae60: GEORGOUS GREEN
   


7. Sheri's World: FUNKY ORANGE

All of these are amazing blogs, all worthy of a visitt!

I seen "Follow Friday" around Twitter for quite some time now, and recently I noticed some blogs here and there doing "Feature Friday". I thought this was an amazing idea and have been planning to do this myself. And there is no time like the present, so today I'm kicking off a (hopefully) regular feature. I'll present some amazing blogs from now on on... Yes, you guessed it! Fridays!


I feel my first fetured blog is especially deserving today. I know many of my readers already follow it, but if you never heard of it then I suggest you head on over and check out:

It was late this summer I think, that I got my first couple of comments from MKL. Don't you just love that feeling? When a new name pop up among your commentars? I headed over to the blog and was pleasantly supriced. It's really well written and talks about things most people can relate to. It offers musings on diverse topics. Ranging from politcs, to weather snow offers romantic possibilities or is just cold and inconvinient, to admiration of asian popstarts and models.

In fact, when I think of MKL I think of Asia. Maybe it's because the header is one hot looking asian chick. Ok, confession time. When I first visitted the blog I thought MKL was a girl!! I thought the girl on the header was the author of the blog... lol, it took me a couple of weeks before I figured out that MKL was in fact not a girl, but a slovanian male. Haha, I guess I'm so used female bloggers it didn't even occur to that a man would visitt my blog.


But MKL also make me think of Asia because I suspect he is just a tad bit over avaragded intrested in the continent! Lol! He even collects chop sticks! I love that. Where was he when I did my "this is something I collect" post this spring?

I think the ultimate proof of how much I enjoy his posts, can be found in my shared items. Have you noticed the application on the right side column called "Carina's best reads"? That's where I share all my favorite posts by other bloggers. Everytime a post I particulary like and think others would enjoy, it ends up there. MKL has had post on there three times! Concidering I haven't shared that many posts from other bloggers yet, that's alot. So if you have any opinions on what will happen to blogs in 50 years time, or which is better between Twitter and Facebook, or wondering why a NY Times reporter had to apologize to Slovanians, then this is the blog for you!

The Blogette is in the running!

I was over at a blog I frequently visitt the other day. This time, I noticed for the first time a poll at the sidebar. This particular poll, polled the most annoying things on a blog. You could choose between a various of, I guess ANNOYING things. Hm... I feel like the Blogette is under attack!

Here are the socalled "annoying" blog elemtents up for voting:

1. Google Ads. I'm still in the clear.B


2. Bad grammer. Hit one! My grammar may not be all that bad, but my spelling is horrendous. I have mild dyslexia. And my spell checker isn't working so there is a lot. I know.


3. Expletives. Well, I NEVER swear... My dad always said swearing only let's on that you have a limited vocalbulary. I wouldn't want people to think that of me. I read. A lot. I'm intelligent! I promise.


4. Pink Layout. Hit two! I'm guitly. You should have seen my lay out before! It was a lot more pink on here then. But how can a pink layout be annoying? I don't get it? Isn't pink EVERYONE'S favorite color??


5. Slow loading. I don't think this is a problem. I don't have a lot of stuff on my site that need to load.


6. Food pics. Hit three! Yes, I've had them and I'm planning on putting more of them on here! I was going to do a recipe sharing with pictures and encouridge others to do the same! Like a recipe party! What a great way to learn new, simpe and tasty recipes from all over the world. How can this be annoying?


7. Girle stuff. Hit four!! I'm a girl! Of course there will be girle stuff on my blog!

Conclusion: I got a 4/7!! I guess my blog must be really annoying. So I thought, should I change anything? Well, I guess I could try to look trough my posts better before clicking post. Spelling errors are annoying. But I won't promise perfection! I do have dyslexia and english is not my first language.


Then there was the pink lay out. It stays. Enough said!


Food pics. Hm.. no, they stay. I love pictures on blog. In fact, I think it's annoying when people write and write and write and never breaks it up with an illustrating photo! Preferably one they have taken themselves. Well maybe not annoying but defintly boring. People are visual creatures after all.


My final hit was on girlie stuff. It's obvious people enjoy different things. I'll keep my pinks, my pictures and continue to post whatever I want. And if you don't like it:


STAY AWAY!

And for your viewing eyes only: Look what I made for dinner tonight! Yummy!!

xoxo

Carina Blogarina

Yesterday I was pretty fed up with studying so I called up my boyfriend to cheer me up with some jokes. He told me a few.

Jokes have a tendancy to ridicoule people. In Norway we have this "feud" with Sweden (all in good fun of course) so we have a lot of Sweeds jokes. And they have a lot of Norwegian jokes. A lot of the jokes involve a swede, a danish person, and a norwegian person. The Scandinavian version of the luheran priest, the catholic father and the jewish rabbi I guess.

There are a lot of jokes out there that makes fun of serious matters. Racism for example. Two of the jokes Derek told me yesterday were about starving people in Sudan. A serious topic. Still, funny jokes.

I'll admit it. I laugh at these jokes. The fact that they are so offensive makes them even funnier. What do you think? Are some topics to serious or sensetive to be touched? Or is humor a way to bring people together and should know no boundaries?