Books & Saturdays

I'll tell ya one good thing about being a writer. I get to choose Saturdays and I've chosen today. Which day is it? Saturday. Enough said.

I thought that I should educate my regular readers about books. ;-) Once and again I'm asked, not to recommend a book, but say what my favorite book is. My favorite book? I find that question very difficult to answer. Of course, often it feels like I'm asked which book is the best one. EVER. Since I spent so much time writing and all, I should know, right? The most mind altering, life changing book? I must be honest. I haven't got a clue. I leave that to the critics. What I thought I would do is to give you the title of three books I've read recently and that I recommend. All American classics. Two by Charles Bukowski: Ham on Rye (Norwegian translation: Nedenom og hjem) and Post Office (Norwegian translation: Postkontoret). One by Nelle Harper Lee: To kill a Mockingbird (Norwegian translation: Drep ikke en sangfugl). I believe that's her only book, but what a book it is?! :-) Read them!

Big Brother

Last night I was unable to sleep. After a very long line of thought (that I couldn't repeat even if I wanted to) I came to the following conclusion: There is only one problem with Big Brother. They let people out.

Connection time out

I’ve discovered a couple of things. Yesterday I was cleaning the all mighty Rancillio coffee machine. I’ve not made espresso for some time and a good thorough cleaning was in order. For a long time I’ve been annoyed by the fact that I couldn’t get the espresso strong enough. I’ve been blaming the machine. Then I’ve been blaming my technique (as you should now, it’s an art making really good coffee). Now I’m back blaming the machine. I was studying how the water was leaving the machine and I realized that the water was not evenly distributed, as it should be. I’ve used the proper tools to make sure that the machine is in the correct position. It turns out that the whole machine is tilted inside. Now I’ve shifted the machine to take his into account my espresso is finally getting there. This has been bugging me for years.

As you may have noticed (optimistic as I am), I’ve not updated my blog for a week now. I guess this is normal blog behavior, but it does bring me to my second discovery: My productivity increases by about three times when I turn off my Internet connection. I’ve always said that since I’m used to work with Internet I was not affected by emails and chat request and all the possibilities the Internet gives me. That is bull. So now I start the day checking email, chat a bit with friends and such. Then I pull the plug and get down to business. Excellent.

Featured photographer

I went out and bought the cheapest Leica camera on the marked. The C-LUX 1.



Apparently it is brand new and it is really selling well. I literally saw it get sold out from one of the most used camera web shops in Norway, so I had to run to another shop and buy it there. I got the last one. That’s how I spend Thursday. The exact same camera has been on the marked for a month or two now and the only difference is that it is by Panasonic. This one is, as fare as I can understand, also made by Panasonic but it has a Leica design. Maybe Leica makes the lens, for both of them. I don’t really know. The Leica model is of course more expensive. All for vanity.

I’ve spent quite a lot of time playing with the camera. I now understand that it will cut seriously into my writing time.

Yesterday evening I went to visit a friend of mine, Andreas. We watched Corpses Bride by Tim Burton on DVD and ate pizza:



The DVD was all right, I guess. Not the best movie I’ve seen. The pizza tasted a lot like kebab, and that makes sense since we bought it at a kebab place. Here are some wonderful pictures of the featured photographer Andreas (Yes, he is the featured photographer, not me):







BTW, you will find a link to his photoblog to the right. It’s really worth a look.

I came back home to my apartment a bit before midnight and decided to take a few more photos before going to bed. I wanted to test the camera in the dark. It turned out that they where having an out door cinema at Grünerløkka library. That’s what I like about Grünerløkka or Løkka for short. There is always something going on.

My blog and I

When I meet friends and old colleges they all seem to want to know how I spend my time as a struggling writer. First of all: Am I a published author? No, but I hope to be one day. I now live on saved money from my IT-consulting job and try to spend as much time as possible writing. I used to write code. Now I just write.

Back to the initial question that everybody ask. Well actually, what they all ask is what do you write about, but I will not reveal that here, as I usually do not reveal it in real life either. However, I will dedicate this blogspot to answering the question they all should be asking: What do you do as a writer? So, the next time they ask I can say: “Go to turbanslife.blogspot.com and see for your self.” Easy peacy.

If I ever get regular readers to this blog, they/you will eventually ask: “How does he ever expect to be a writer? This blog is full of typos and bad grammar.” Well, I find comfort in the fact that English is my second language and that my novel is written in Norwegian. If I get a bunch of regular readers I will start having ads on the blog and I will earn a shit load of money. Well, writing is all about daydreaming, isn’t it?

When I get around to it, I will buy a camera and my blog will be full of pictures from my life. I will use more pictures and fewer words, so that I don’t spend all my writing energy on this blog and not on my book. If there is nothing happening in my blog, you should all be happy for me because then I probably am busy writing on something else. However, if I update my blog frequently, you know that I am in trouble.

Is what you find here “the truth and whole truth so help me God?” Noh. My rough estimate is that turbansblog.blogspot.com will contain ten to twenty percent lies, but I guess that is the beauty of the Internet. You can lie as much as you like. Almost.