Happy Holidays

I want to thank each and everyone of you for the gift of friendship, trust, patience and love. These gifts make every day feel like Christmas Eve.

Old school is still cool

Anachronism?

Coins!

Wow, it does not take much to entertain yourself at this time of year

Gingerbread

Christmas, it is one day nearer.

Busy Schedule

The holidays are drawing nearer and it is quite easy to notice. Had my first of four tests before Christmas today. I am rather clueless to how it should be translated but it dealt with the methods and theories in history as a field of study at Universitys. Spanish is next, tomorrow to be more precise. Number three and four is next Monday and Tuesday: English drama and poetry followed by Europe in the Middle Ages. Wonder how this will turn out . . .

Who does not miss autumn?

Recap

So, it is time for the first annual recap of a year in my life since I am celebrating my birthday tomorrow. I can not really say that I remember a lot from this time around last year. Pretty much the whole period untill New Years Eve is a blank. That might be a good sign, I do not know. I have done a lot of fun stuff this year and it has not been all black. The highlight of this year might be the trip to Edinburgh in March with my fellow students. I had a blast and I am sure that pretty much the whole group agree with me. One could say that the trip is connected with me buying a new camera. I have always liked the idea of doing photographing, even if it is just based as a hobby. That is pretty much what it will remain as, a hobby. I do not think there is any potential for it to expand to be work related.

Before I forget it, I am also an uncle now. It is still pretty cool even though I can not take any credit for it. Seeing myself as an uncle is a bit awkward. My image of an uncle is a rather old dude with no hair and is settled down. I am currently none of that.

This broke my chain of thoughts and I can not remember what I was really going to mention. Oh yes, concerts. I am starting to have a respectable number of concerts attended on my soul. Two shows with Metallica back to back in April was awesome. Front row on both nights as well. Beeing less than two meters away from your heroes is not an every day event. The third concert I have attended has been mentioned in a post a bit further down. Sorry if I do not write anything about it. But hey, it is my page.

There have been highs and certainly lows. It is during the lows, when everything seems wrong, that you learn to know yourself and people around you. What the low periods were about are known to the friends that deserve to know the full truth. I have a lot of friends around me but there are some extra special ones that I cherish with all my heart. Therefore, the only thing left to say is thanks . . .

Picture

Forgot to put up a picture from yesterday, taken from my spot at the rail.

Not a poem nor a photograph . . .

But this is going to be about Volbeat. Went to see them live at Samfundet yesterday. I've been at many stadium and arena shows. A setting like this is quite different but not worse, by any means. As "usual" I got a spot at the front row, dead center. The first support band sucked ass. Sorry to say it like that, but they did. Next one, Entombed, was quite decent. They had some really nice riffage going on and good melodies. Think it automatically sounds better with two guitarists, rythm guitar adds another dimention of weight to the solo parts, in my opinion. The vocalist looked to me as a leprechaun; short with long hair, stumbling around on stage. He was drunk to say the least.

I can't remember when Volbeat came on, think it was about 11 pm. From the very start I noticed that this was a type of show I have not been to. The pressure up front was intense! I had to really push back the crowd with my feet against the rail. It got a bit easier on the second half, though. Now, Volbeat is great live and that's not something I say to be nice. They're really professional about what they do as they go out 100 percent and do their job. The songs are good on CD, but live it is a complete different thing. This is how they are supposed to sound. We who were on the front row got attention from the band constantly. The bassplayer threw the horns at us, thumbs up etc... Michael, the singer, took it further. He stepped down to us on the floor so we could high five him and stuff like that. In addition to that, I got to strum his guitar. Loved every second of it.

As expected, Sad Man's Tongue was dedicated to Dio. I could not see behind me but it sounded like every person there yelled their lungs out and threw the horns in the air, amazing. Still, this was not the end of the night. Before they started "Thanks" they wanted people up on stage to just rock out and sing. Now, this is not I would do elsewhere. I said to the security "hey, lift me over the rail". I had to be hauled out, did not have any space to move. But yeah, I got up on stage with Volbeat, looking out to the audience. A thousand people going ballistic and then I was there along with three or four other I do not know. I was quite exhausted by then so it was sort of good that they played "Thanks", it is not so long. And that meant I could just use my last strength on stage for Volbeat. After the song, the band minus the drummer, gave us all new high-fives. During their last song I was standing a bit further back, just enjoying the moment and I could not care less about catching picks or drum sticks. It still kicked maximum ass!

'Nother one!

I feel like I am on a roll, sort of. But I had to be pushed in the right direction thanks to an assignment for my English class which focuses on poetry. But the content is as true as things could be. Some feedback would be nice as well . . .

The couplet:

My mask, my face is blank. Stare hard to see

The eyes cannot tell tales, they lie to me

Rearranging.

I have done some slight changes to the poem below. At least I think I have done some changes.

You . . .

Can you see me as I see you?
We fade as flowers die.
Be gone, please not step away
The soul, it makes a sigh

The black crow stare “why me?” I die.
Just me, not real, just grief
be gone misty life, this is not true!
as ships sails upon great reef

Turn away to flee from here
Would I stop you? Could I?
Long live the burning heart I hear
My grave is where I lie

She's back in action

You . . .

Can you see me as I see you
We fade as flowers die
dark and cold you step away
The soul, it makes a sigh

The black crow stare why me? I die
Just me, not real, just grief
be gone misty life this is not true
as ships hits a great reef

Turn away to flee from here
Would I stop you? Could I?
Long live the burning heart I hear
My grave is where I lie

I feel cheated

I am feeling not too well this days, might be the flu or something. Whatever it is it kept me awake the whole night and therefore I did not bother going to class. It was a Spanish class so the world is not doomed. I decided to be a good boy and read the pdf-file of the lecture and do the tasks the teacher had written down. Gathering the textbooks, the notebook and the computer I sat down in the livingroom, ready for some action. But the action never came. The tasks were done in less than ten minutes and the lecture did not contain anything new. I thought I could pat myself on the back after a day of hard work. Oh how mistaken one can be.