Flattened horses

This one comes a bit late. I have a back log of blog entries.. not feeling too guilty about it right now, but the thought does cross my mind now and then that 'oh I should really blog about this!'.

However, the number of times I am sure the giant computer in the sky has heard that (oops.. did I just imply God was a computer? Silly me!) is probably astronomical. Get it? Computers, astronomy? Nah.. neither did I :). Anyway... so I think most people are running around thinking 'oh I should really blog about that', and I'm no different. There is the sobering thought we are all just getting fat and lazy. There are quite a few people out there that manage to be quite diligent at keeping their blogs up to date.. but let me tell you something, MOST OF THEM ARE BORING! Yup.. perhaps my first (or second) controversial statement here. But the truth is, I can't stand reading some people's blogs, regardless of whether or not they are my friends. I feel slightly guilty saying that, and I most certainly won't divulge who the culprits are - but boy oh boy do they need to grow some imagination.

Then again, look at the drivel you find on my blog.

So, I suppose I should talk about flattened horses now or something, since I made that the title 'n all..

Katrin and I went to a friend's summer house (thanks Helgi ;) ) for a saturday night. In Iceland this entails a BBQ, beer, and sitting around in a hot tub. Every summer house in Iceland has them pretty much. There were some interesting rugs lying about...


Helgi said the above one was called.. hmm, well since I can't really remember, we'll just call him Bob.


And this one was Dolly ;). Apparently both of them had been so popular with the family that they were allowed to continue on as a foot rug and a wall hanging! Go Bob and Dolly, we will cherish you forever as we wipe our feet on the way to the toilet.

No more stolen cat

I just noticed that I had mentioned I lived with a stolen cat from the neighbourhood we live in. Well, that's a lie now.. because we had to give her back. Still, it looks funny in the profile so I'm gonna leave it there. Turns out that the cat belonged to a house a few doors up the street, and that the owner was looking after a kitten for a week or two - the cat got jealous, packed its things and moved out, right into our apartment.

I have to say it was one of the most persistent cats I've ever dealt with. Normally I take great joy from teasing cats, but I'm not sure I would want to mess with this one. To start with she's a black cat, and I don't want to cross her. She was quite precocious - after being thrown out of the house several times she seemed to instinctively know where all the windows were, and after giving me an extremely peculiar look each time (as only cats can do, and that quite plainly screamed 'don't mess with me'), she returned immediately. After throwing her out several times in a row we finally had to close all the windows..

We did let her in quite often though, she had a good temperament and was very social. But after we found out she had run away from home we decided to keep her shut out all the time in case she got too comfortable. The look she gave me when I threw her out for the last time was somewhere between the 'puss in boots' stare and the 'I'm going to claw you mofo!' range. I haven't seen her around the neighbourhood since, but I keep reassuring the other resident Kat that the other cat is fine and probably somewhere dining on better food than we do.

So, we have gone from this:















To just this one :)..




"waahhh!!! where did my cat go :("...

Anti social

Ugh - what is it exactly that makes me feel on occasion as though I am the most anti social person I know.

I have got a big ball of 'leave me alone' going on in my stomach today. I think I'm tired of the routine, I want to be excited and to be doing, seeing, or hearing things that make me say 'wow.. I'm glad I decided to do this'.

Routine. It's a nice thing, but not an exciting thing. Perhaps I have the same complaint as billions of other people that need to turn up to work every day, every week, every year.

The summer time is over here, and I spent all of it in Iceland. It was a good summer, and spent with my loved one, but one of my goals for coming up to this part of the world in the first place was to be able to get out and about, to go and see new places and meet new people, to have fun. With winter obviously approaching, and with the wind starting to bite my cheeks and stiffen my fingers every morning, I'm feeling more trapped and with little prospect of being able to get away.

I don't mean to be rude when I'm anti social, but perhaps I come across that way - very quiet, not joking around (when expected.. should 'joking around' be something other people expect you to go along with anyway?), enclosing my ears in some mercifully 'privatising' headphones and delving into some reading.

I know myself when I'm like this. I just want to be walking free in some new city or countryside, feeling uncertain and being happy about it - not knowing which store I might pop into or which person I will talk to next, or where I'm going to have lunch.

I don't want my entire life to be like this - some extreme of freedom, nor an extreme of routine. I want a healthy mix.

Is it just that I haven't had a holiday in so long? I really hope so..

Marmite Deficits

Okay here we go.. this time I swear I'm gonna do it. Nothing's going to stop me, my will is strong, my mandate pure, and my body and mind are ready, willing and able. Yes. That's right, I'm actually going to try to keep a blog, and update at least often enough that the site doesn't get to delete me, along with all the other poor fellas that once had aspirations of blogging glory and then thought it was more enjoyable to watch Neighbours instead.

Okay, so I never thought it was more enjoyable to watch Neighbours (maybe when Kylie Minogue was still starring and Love Train was popular). Maybe.. ok probably, Love Train came later. Or before. Oh stop it - don't nitpick!

I'm sitting here right now cross legged on my bed with a plate holding a delicious serving of New Zealand Marmite on Toast. It is actually good enough that 'Marmite' and 'Toast' deserve to be spelt with a big M and a big T. At this particular point in time however, I might just be inclined to think its better than it really is. Marmite starvation can tend to do that to a man - in fact, I have self-diagnosed myself as having acute Marmite Deficit, something that can happen to any kiwi who has strayed for too long from New Zealand.

One might ask: "but why and how did you get Marmite Deficit?". This question is best answered with a short and under-done story, kind of like:

Inadequate story teller: "Well, because I decided to live as far away from New Zealand as any sane marmite lover can get".
Inadequate story listener: "But where!? Tell us Marmite man!".
Inadequate story teller: "Well, because now I live in Iceland".
The End.

So.. yeah, that's about it really, I live in Iceland, and far be it from being all scandinavian and open minded and all that jazz as I thought it might have been. Ohhh noo. You couldn't find an imported Marmite jar here unless you decided to burgle your Mum's old friend that lives in the next town. And that's pretty much impossible since a) they know who you are and b) most kiwis abroad guard their Marmite in a rather zealous, but arrestingingly adorable, manner.

Trying to induce some manners in the savages doesn't seem to work very well either. I once had the hope that if only I could convince them that Marmite was Good (like all that is holy, including cows), then they might start importing it and I would never have to worry about bribing friends to send me some ever again. But now I have learnt my lesson... the last brave Icelander that decided to try it promptly screwed up his face and, wretching and grasping his throat, made a direct bee line for the bathroom, where a good quantity of perfectly good Marmite (a few grams) was unceremoniously delivered to the stinky depths of Davey Jones' toilet locker.

So, it seems there is not much hope for me. I will have to continue to lie, cheat, and steal to obtain my Marmite fixes. During those periods when I fail to use any of the aforementioned methods in any vaguely successful manner, I will resort to staring at my custom made Marmite poster on the ceiling above my head, my left eye twitching spasmodically.

There're even several Marmite groups on Facebook, doncha know.. I applaud the valiant souls who created them. Hopefully as I add more Icelandic friends on facebook I can goad them somehow into joining the groups and thereby trick them through some form of internet hypnosis to help me find Marmite.

Enough writing, I'm off for a second helping!

The above text as well as this line may or may not contain entirely fictional elements.