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Ho, ho, ho…Merry Xmas everybody!

Enjoy these days of love, light and warmth!

And, share the spirit…we’re doing something special this year; we invited the KLM crew that arrived this afternoon in Oslo for Christmas dinner at our place!

Since all restaurants in Oslo are either fully booked or closed today, this gives them a special Xmas before they fly back tomorrow…

As I said; share the spirit…have a LOVEly Xmas y’all!!

Julaften or Christmas Eve is traditionally the main event during the Xmas festivities in Norway. A big traditional Christmas dinner and lots of gifts under the Xmas tree is what it is mostly about (while being with family and/or loved ones).

We decided to have an alternative Julaften; no big dinner, but Dutch traditional pea soup/’snert‘ instead, yummm!! And even though Santa (uhh, Julenissen!) brought us some presents under the Xmas tree, most of the evening will be centered around the ‘All You Need Is Love Xmas special’ with Robert ten Brink (everyone in NL knows exactly what this is). Parts of the TV show are recorded in Norway (Bergen, Finse and Flåm) which is nice but still…there are days that I wished we didn’t have dutch satellite TV! 😉

Hehe, Xmas spirit arrived with the walk to the Lysdammen lake this afternoon, it was magical! (see below…it’s hard to believe that this is the same lake!)

Playing Xmas tunes the whole day is another great way to get into the spirit; one of my favorites: The Pogues – Fairy Tale of New York…enjoy!

British humor is…well, friggin’ brilliant!! Check out this sketch from The One Ronnie show…LoL 😉

Yeah, that’s right, it is December 21 and today is Global Orgasm Day!! (my motto; make everyday a GoD! 😉 )

The concept is explained on their website:
‘Let’s see how many people we can get to join our cause and make the biggest difference on the planet!’

When?
Practice as often as you would like!  Especially on full moons, new moons, solstices and equinoxes, or when you remember!

What?
Dedicate an orgasm to Peace.

Who?
All men and women – you and everyone you know.

Where?
Everywhere in the world, but especially in those countries affected by war or violence – those most in need of peace.

Why?
To effect positive change in the energy field of the earth through conscious dedication of orgasmic energy to the vibration of Peace. Our minds and our biology influence Matter and Quantum Energy fields, so by concentrating our thoughts before, during, and after orgasm on peace and loving-kindness, the synergy of high orgasmic physical energy combined with the power of positive visualization could help reduce global levels of violence, hatred and fear.  Orgasm is the largest possible instantaneous surge of human biological and spiritual energies. It is a biological gift!  What better way to achieve your resolution for Peace?

Practice, practice, practice (safely)!  Tell all your friends about this website and encourage them to participate!  Help this year be the biggest Global-Oh since we began tracking it.

Yet another reason to forget about plastic and go completely cash!! 😉

I don’t think that anyone missed this one last week, we’re all connected ah? I still favor the 2006 Person of the Year…YOU! 😉

TIME.com: ‘For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them, for creating a new system of exchanging information and for changing how we live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year’

This ‘beatbox’ girl is amazing! Her name is Julia Dales and this two-minute clip features DJ mixes, a bass line, drums, and an excellent remix of Justin Timberlake, Fergie and Nelly Furtado.

Don’t try this at home folks, you might break your tongue!

Snow and NL is no good match at all; half the country came to a complete standstill and that meant that my flight got canceled! 🙁 I missed a great dinner with friends due to the white powder…very nice of them to cancel the dinner because I couldn’t make it though! (or was that because no one could make it, crazy situation on the highway and trains got canceled too…) 😉

Well, at least I have my share of fun; snow is falling here too, big flakes at the moment putting a nice fresh 10cm layer on top of the 20cm that we already had (I love the white backyard, magical!)…and, NO problem for cars, trains, buses nor airplanes here! 😉

Oops…!

Note to self; don’t go to the beach, drink vodka like a true Russian and then try to get dressed…it’s actually pretty sad, and funny! 😉

…

This next one is *as bad*, but matches the time of year somewhat better…ho ho hooooo!!

If you were not aware of it; your iDevice makes a great music instrument…get into Xmas mood! It’s the North Point’s iBand playing Feliz Navidad on iPhone and iPad!

Anyone who flew internationally lately (especially in/to the US), has been faced with the latest attempt of governments trying to get people out of airplanes (and in the US; into trains, highspeed rail is the meme!) by forcing you to go through full body scanners (aka naked body scanners).

These scanners use high-frequency radio waves to produce an image of a passengers naked body beneath clothes. Anything a passenger is carrying against the body — weapons, drugs or explosives — would be exposed. The scanners would also reveal the presence of prosthetic devices and breast implants.

Well…there already have been privacy and legal concerns raised about the invasive equipment, PARTICULARLY because it is unclear if the scanners would be able to detect explosives hidden in body cavities and would therefore likely provide only minimal security…it’s all a scam…(although many would not mind any ‘naked’ pics of some celebs floating around the net, ah? 😉 )

More and more people are opposing, last November 24 was National Opt-Out Day in the US (you opt-out for the naked body scanner and get a full pat down in return, uhhh…) and members of the Pirate Party in Germany earlier organized a flashmob where people stripped down to their skivvies and converged on the Berlin-Tegal airport. Nice one! 😉

Today turned out to be pretty similar as last years ‘second Sunday in December’, this is what I wrote Sunday December 13 2009:

‘…Robbert left this afternoon, so the party weekend is over…

Well, almost: I went to see ‘The Real Choir‘ in the local cultural center tonight…’

Interesting and coincidental 😉 …again, this weekend was all about party, Robbert left this afternoon and after that we went to see ‘The Real Choir‘ once again. Their Xmas concert, done together with a Romanian orchestra, was spectacular, special and really gets me into Xmas mode!



“Als je beseft dat je liefde niet moet zoeken
maar het kunt herkennen in jezelf
herken je het ook in de ander
en maak je ‘t samen tot iets groots”

“Hvis du innser at du ikke trenger å søke etter kjærligheten
men å enkjenne det i deg selv
du gjenkjenner den i den andre også
og sammen gjør du det til noe stort ”

So, Thank God It’s Friday everybody!!!

Robbert is coming over for the weekend and I am about to pick him up from the airport, yayyyy! Haha, he will actually be the waiter at our Ode2Love party (the Norwegian edition) tomorrow ;)…Sshhhh, don’t tell him, he doesn’t know that yet! 😉 😉

Nah, it’s just great to have him over…already the sixth time this year, wow!!

A sunny vacation in Costa Rica makes great photos including the one below that I’ll use as Profile picture for the various Social Networks. It’s not too sunny, or?

Everyone knows Ryanair as the true price fighter when it comes to flying el-cheapo. Recently they came up with the plan to introduce ‘standing-seats’ to even bring down their rates further, it almost seems as if they are operating a ‘free’ public service instead of running a commercial organization?!?

One has to realize though that there are many hidden fees that gradually increase their incredible low advertised rates, so they are not always the cheapest. Their service level *is* however, according to some, very ‘cheap’…check www.ihateryanair.org for some good stories! 😉

And if you really want to know how they make their money after they lure you in with cheap rates, check out the YouTube clip below! 😉

Kissy bought the second generation Apple TV when she was in Canada last week, so the geek has a new gadget to play with hehe!

Despite the fact that the feature of renting TV Shows and Movies is not available (yet?) in Norway, this nifty device is already giving me lots of pleasure…it is simply a great way to stream my music, photos and movies from any computer at home to my TV and stereo (no DivX yet, but with a jailbreak on its way that will come sooner than later 😉 , next to that I expect Apple to take the  App Store route since the Apple TV is iOS based…VLC will definitely be there!). Next to that it provides instant access to YouTube, Flickr, MobileMe, Podcasts and 100’s of Internet Radio stations. So far, so good, but the most amazing feature is AirPlay; the setup, ease of use and (future) options are many…it’s very cool to see it live in action (check out this video to get an impression).

And all of that in a really, really tiny box (less than 10x10cm)…you can see that it is small from the photo below, but I didn’t realize how tiny it really was until I took it out of the box.

Unlike the previous generation of Apple TV, I expect this one to be a hit, it’s already a great addition to my Apple gear at home!

Truly a mystery to me why Apple still doesn’t sell this nifty gadget with its relatively low price point in more countries (despite the lack of TV Show / Movie content!)…iHappy! 😉

Yay, Sinterklaas found the way ‘up North’ and passed by the house tonight! 😉

We celebrated it just with the two of us, so there was no long guessing of who got what from whom. 😉

Kissy got her Hunter boots, and I got Avatar on Blu’Ray’…finally a movie to unleash the stunning features of the HDTV!

It’s December which means the evenings are long and dark…a good moment to start watching Season 8 of ‘24‘!

Hahaha, it’s couch potato time!!

Tonight we have the traditional Xmas dinner/party (‘Julebord‘) with work and it is gonna be different than all the earlier Julebord’s I had; the dinner will be in a barn (haha, and still behave like pigs so that stays the same 😉 ). I just heard that it is currently -10C there, so no fancy clothing this time, just layers of warm cloths, gloves, scarves and a hat!

It’s going to be quite special although I do think that we all will continuously remind ourselves that we’re doing this for fun! 😉

PS. No blogpost tomorrow means I froze and am still stuck in that barn! 😉