Great Garlic Girls!

Things are slow going, especially in the blogging department, and I blame a combination of summer, laziness and an unusually busy schedual. These days I find myself running between work, hospital, my apartment (which I'm moving out of), my dog sitter, my friends and family. And some days I just demand to have a few hours to do absolutely squat, otherwise I'll go mad. Generally I shouldn't complain about having lots to do, usually it's quite the opposite, and most of the things in my calender are very optional, and things I want to do.

This Saturday I was invited to a girl's night complete with tapas. The nice chickadee hosting this was an old school friend of mine, we even lived together for a year or so, and she's one of the few people I've managed to stay in touch with. Seeing as she is studying to become a nutritionist, this mountain of food shouldn't surprise me, but it did: focaccia bread, aioli, red pesto, salmon rolls, potato "boats", chicken meat balls, feta cheese, tomatoes, salad... My friend, and everyone who knows me, can testify that I'm even more of a picky eater than Richard Hammond "he won't eat anything unless it's come from a burger van on the A38." She was, therefore, mildly surprised that I ate most of what was on that table, apart from the salmon thingies (because I really don't like fish, either). I did, however, rediscover aioli, and I discovered red pesto, which is made of sundried tomatoes. Hate that other green stuff. My breath still reeks of garlic, three days later. For the first time in years I'm actually quite OK with being single, this way no one can complain. My dog probably would, if she could...

Miss Gadgeteer strikes again
The Arvika Festival is approaching quickly (luckily), and mentally I've been packing and preparing for weeks. I'm starting to get the basics covered, I have a new sleeping bag (not the funky one I wanted, sadly), some new clothes, I've dug up me tent, air bed and camping chairs, my purple wellies, the sun lotion, basically I'm preparing for anything. I decided right away that I'm not bringing my digital SLR, it's too expensive, too big, and I'm too scared it'll be broken or stolen, which will just ruin my festive mood. In a box somewhere I have an old, ancient Ixus II, which came out in 02/03 and has a staggering 3,2 megapixel resolution, along with a LCD display the size of a fingernail. My particular Ixus also has it's own "acid trip" function, resulting in wacky colours on any picture I try to take. In short, it's broken and outdated, I inherited it from my dad when he was bored with it and wanted a new one anyway, and I would guess that 7 years is just about the maximum life span on things like these anyway. That's going in the bin, in other words, and I promptly decided I want, if not exactly need, a new compact camera. I quickly rifled through about 10 of the online electronics stores I know about in Norway, and after a bit of thorough research I ended up buying a Kodak Easyshare (I hate those names) C913. 9,3 megapixels, 2,5" lcd screen, lots of nifty foolproof functions (like all these have). It even runs on AA batteries, and while you can argue it's not the most enviromentally friendly, there is such a thing as rechargeable ones, and AA batteries are very nifty when you're at a festival with no possibility of charging it for 3-4 days. And the thing didn't cost me more then €82! Add a 4GB SDHC card and a little case to put it in, and I'm set! In this hi-tech day and age I shouldn't be surprised at stuff like this, but when I discovered how tiny this thing is I really was exactly that: surprised! It's 9 x 6,2 x 2,5 cm. Basically it's the size of a fag packet. Seeing as I have a huge, shiny digital SLR to play with at home, I shouldn't get excited by this, but I am, and can't wait to get it in the mail.