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Following a splendid company teambuilding event, today moves on to ‘KISS day’…I have tickets for their concert tonight!!

H. Norman Schwarzkopf: “You can’t help someone get up a hill without getting closer to the top yourself.”

I have a company teambuilding event the coming two days!

We’ll be with almost 90 colleagues, coming from Norway, The Netherlands and Slovakia…it will be great to catch up with some people I haven’t seen for over a year. The event is held at the historical and beautiful island of Bolerne in the Oslo fjord. Weather is supposed to be brilliant, so trust me; it’ll be HEAPS of fun!

I got my norwegian bankaccount last year while I ‘only’ had a temporary personal number, awaiting the further processing of my application of moving into Norway. Everything was cool and I had an account on which my salary could be paid. The internet banking worked fine (and started off my language course, since the site is all in norwegian ;)).

After receiving my permanent norwegian personal number I informed the bank who told me that my bankcard needed to be changed. Easy enough, but it caused a problem with my creditcard in the internet banking system; I couldn’t check the transactions, balance and invoices online! Lemme tell you, when you are used to arranging all banking stuff online, this really sucks…the solution according to the bank would be to change my creditcard too. It meant I was without a card for a week, since the card would be blocked from the moment a new card is requested. Not convenient, but I went for it anyway…only to find out that the new card didn’t solve the problem, and I still didn’t have access to any creditcard details online!!

What is up with that?? How difficult can it be? I mean, the account stayed the same when I changed the temporary for the permanent personal number…anyway, todays good news is that after several months my bank finally got their act together and got things working!

Yay, my banking life is good again!

A press release today: “TeliaSonera today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia later this year”.

Damn, this means that the national operator in Norway, Telenor, did not (yet?) cut a deal with Apple and I won’t be able to use the iPhone in its native, non SIM unlocked, way. In itself there is not that much difference, since I can use my iPhone just fine, but it would open up some features like visual voicemail.

Hmm, I hope the TeliaSonera deal is non-exclusive and Telenor will be able to to support the iPhone too, at least in Norway.

I’m a huge Guitar Hero fan (despite that I don’t have the game myself!)…jamming the guitar is just funFUNfun! This year Guitar Hero IV will be released and that means band time! Besides the guitar, a drumkit and microphone will be part of the game, yay…drummin’ till you drop and singin’ coz you can’t stop! Hehe, even more funFUNfun.

The big question; is the Guitar Hero alternative, Rock Band, any better/more fun?? Any tips?

Someone lately said to me that I should learn Norways national anthem since I decided to stay for some while longer. Then, I realized yesterday after feeling so happy when Finland AND Sweden gave their 12 points to Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest yesterday, I’d better start practicing the lyrics to Norways national anthem…So, here we go:

(the full lyrics and background are to be found on Wikipedia, as always ;). Also since the 1st, 7th and 8th verses are normally used as the anthem, I limited it to those).

Ja, vi elsker dette landet,
Som det stiger frem,
Furet, værbitt, over vannet,
Med de tusen hjem.
Elsker, elsker det og tenker
På vår far og mor
Og den saganatt som senker
Drømme på vår jord,
Og den saganatt som senker
Senker drømme på vår jord,

Norske mann i hus og hytte,
Takk din store Gud!
Landet ville han beskytte
Skjønt det mørkt så ut.
Alt hva fedrene har kjempet,
Mødrene har grett,
Har den Herre stille lempet,
Så vi vant vår rett,
Har den Herre stille lempet,
Så vi vant, vi vant vår rett.

Ja, vi elsker dette landet,
Som det stiger frem,
Furet, værbitt over vannet,
Med de tusen hjem!
Og som fedres kamp har hevet
Det fra nød til seier
Også vi når det blir krevet,
For dets fred slår leir,
Også vi når det blir krevet,
For dets fred, dets fred slår leir.

We put the old Honda up for sale on finn.no (the same website that we used to find our rental-house on btw.). This little red devil is available for car parts only since it is not registered in Norway…I must admit, that kind of hurts; the car still drives great! But as mentioned before; importing is a no-no.

Already five people have contacted me on the first day, hmm, is the price too low?!? The first one to actually come over to check it out, was not interested in the end…the next one comes tomorrow, thumbs up!!

CNN: “Giant ‘telescope’ links London, New York… …When the sun illuminated the lens of the Telectroscope next to the Thames, it was, of course, still nighttime in New York. So the screen inside the scope broadcast back only an empty sidewalk silently framed by the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline.”

As heard in Adam Curry‘s Daily Source Code: the Prostate Cancer Prevention Quota!

Research (from 2003 no less) shows that men who ejaculate more than five times per week are one-third less likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer (the BBC covered it too).

So, common guys, uhhh…let’s prevent prostate cancer?? 😉

The laws of Manu: “Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself…True happiness is born of self-reliance.”

Robert Scoble (aka. the Scobleizer) did it again; creating an interesting theory by combining two separate rumors, a theory that will put the Web as we know it upside down.

This time the fight of future power on the Web changes from Facebook vs. Google to Microsoft vs. the Web, where the potential Microsoft/Yahoo Search/Facebook threesome competes against the open public Web.

It’s interesting to follow Roberts thought process, a nice read, and just in case it becomes true…I should be well prepared to fight back as FriendFeed‘er. 😉

Kissy managed to get a hold on the last Nintendo Wii in Amsterdam Airport yesterday! I guess you know what we have been upto tonight; hehe, indeed…GAMING!!

The two games included contain a variety of minigames; ‘Wii Sports’ has tennis, baseball, bowling, golf and boxing (extremely fun to play against eachother). ‘Rayman Raving Rabbids’, a bit a childish game but with ROTFLMAO humor, even consists of 74 (!!) different minigames…all in all shitload of entertainment, and even physically challenging, grrroovy!

“Well, as with many things in life it turns out the facts that I knew about the Mac were either hopelessly outdated or simply myths.”

David Alison, an internet entrepreneur, put up a list of common Mac Myths:

• Mac’s only use a single mouse button
• There are not that many applications for Macs
• Macs are closed machines that cannot be expanded
• Macs don’t work well with Windows machines on a network
• Macs are more expensive
• Macs can’t run my Windows software
• Macs are mouse centered machines. You constantly have to grab the mouse.

It’s a nice read, give it a go!

Gratulerer med dagen! Or, congratulations on the day…Constitution Day that is (‘syttende mai‘)!

I’m off to the city for champagne breakfast (apparently a tradition, and, since it is Norway, you’re supposed to bring your own champagne…wtf?).

The weather is supposed to be the worst and coldest of the past 50 years, I’m so lucky, pfff…I hope I don’t catch a cold while watching the parade.

Tomorrow, May 17, is a special day in Norway called ‘syttende mai’, which basically means May 17. This is the day that the Norwegian Constitution is celebrated. This constitution, signed on May 17 1814, declared Norway an independent nation, it was the first step to full independence from Denmark (which happened in 1905) with which it was forming a Union since 1537.

I am invited to a pre-party tonight in order to prepare for tomorrows festivities in Oslo city…of course I accepted the invite as it is obviously important for my cultural integration process…;)

At the end of my meetings at WHO today, I got a tour around the Strategic Health Operations Centre (also called the SHOC room). This is the place from where WHO is coordinating its response to acute public health crises around the globe (crises such as infectious disease outbreaks, natural disasters and chemical emergencies). What looked like a pretty standard corporate meeting room at first, turned out to be an impressive integration of a variety of top notch multimedia tools (geek time!) providing a looking glass of the disaster area for the team working with the crisis…no surprise that the SHOC room is currently filled with activities related to the two recent natural disasters in Myanmar and China.

Mike Myers: “And I loved the whole idea behind the story, which is that you’re beautiful, so don’t let other people tell you that you’re not just because you don’t look like the people in magazines. Or because you’re not that weird ideal body image that’s out there right now.”

I arrived in Geneva, and am trying out a new hotel here (Citadines). So far it proved to be a nice, yet old style hotel. A room with a kitchen, suitable for a longer stay, but a couch bed…wtf?!? It’s on the french side, so I had to cross the border…it’s interesting to visit two countries where I only have to be in one (Switzerland). Up for a good night sleep to be fit for tomorrows meeting with WHO!

Anyone who followed yesterdays Tweets knows that we arrives safe at home (the Norwegian home that is ;)). Todays day was mainly spent outside; mowing the grass, washing the car, falling asleep in the sun and…bbq’ing!! Yeah, the bbq season has been officially opened today!

I’m looking forward to many many more this year…let the sun shine and the coles burn!