LIFE IS UNCERTAIN

As I was talking with a friend in Brisbane, Australia, on the msn today, I told him I felt a fever coming up.

”Oh no! Not the swine flu?!!” he asked. “Well, I believe it doesn’t spread on the MSN anyway,” he said after a while.

I answered by sending him THIS:

The moral is:

“You can never be too safe”

Here is one of my favorites.

Click the picture below, and you can see it for yourself.

 When the Sky Fell Down, Feb 7, 2009
  

It's snowing. The most certain sign that winter is back. I got a message in my guestbook from Steve in Alaska today - it's back over there as well. This video was made last February, and I can tell you it's not that "bad" yet, but it will be, it will be... Let's just send a wish for a White Christmas

About Anne grete Preuss' song - she sings "without weapons they force you to capitulate" and "everything is a little slower here on Earth when all the sky is falling down".

Wherever you are in the world, and whatever time of the year you may have on your part of the planet, with this winter regard I wish you all a great week!

 Ellen

Gratulerer med cupgullet, AaFK!

Jeg har holdt øye med  Aalesunds Fotballklubb i noen år nå, og det er mildest talt underholdende. Humpedissa fra Sunnmøre som endelig har greid å stoppe skytteltrafikken mellom Tippeligaen og Adecco.

Fremdeles er Glimt Klubben i Mitt Hjerte, men du verden, det var aldri tvil i min sjel da jeg hørte hvem som skulle møtes i årets Cupfinale:

Hvor ufattelig morsomt ville det ikke være om AaFK tok gullet foran snuta på Molde som har vært så suverene i serien i år?

Og så gjorde de akkurat det! I en kamp så full av spenning at det halve kunne ha vært nok.

Sunnmøringene fylte minst 3/4 av tribuneplassene på Ullevaal stadion. Det står helt i stil med entusiasmen på fotballkampene generelt. Engasjementet hos AaFK-supporterne er helt spesielt. Jeg tror knapt man finner noe lignende noe annet sted i Norge.

Jeg ønsker AaFK lykke til i neste års Tippeliga og Europaspill!

Foto fra gamle Kråmyra stadion. Tifoen er fra en kamp mot nettopp Molde, og teksten..?

“Ett Fylke – Én By – Ett Lag – Aalesunds FK”

Have some fun with 

PAC MAN (REMI GAILLARD)
   

If you want more fun with Rémi Gaillard,

I recommend the banana, the cangaroo,

the bat, the chicken funeral.

His saying is

"C'est en faisant n'importe quoi

qu'on devient n'importe qui" -

"it's by doing anything

that you become anyone".

Here is my blog of January 20, 2008:

"Cidade de Deus"- "City of God". Drugs. Brutality. Drugs. Cynicism. Drugs. Violence. Drugs. Always drugs. It's a movie, oh yes. But unfortunately this movie is the truth. Based on a true story from the Rio de Janeiro slum. It's not new, but that doesn't mean the story is "out". This isn't fashion - this is real life. To a huge number of people it's death. I watched the movie last night.

A Brazilian recommended this movie. I took that as a guarantee. And I wasn't disappointed, I was shocked. I couldn't believe what I saw. I sat there watching it for two hours asking myself "is this true - or is it some 'this could have happened in our city' thing?". Then, at the end of the movie it appeared in small types, "BASED ON A TRUE STORY".

I have learned a new word now - favela. The favelas are ghettoes. People who live in the favelas, live in a constant fear of being robbed or killed. But there's an unwritten law against criminality in your own favela. That is, criminality against your own people - you may very well gang up on an intruder, such as a journalist or just some other fool who has "got lost" up there.

The movie shows us the stories of the men - most of them from they were little kids. The girls and women are hardly mentioned. Because this is the men's world. And the boys are meant to grow up and be a part of that world. If they grow up. Many of them don't - they are killed by rivals or they kill each other before they reach the age of 20.

The "City of God" shows us how brutal life is to some people, and one can ask the question "some of these young boys - do they really have a choice..?". When a bad guy turns into "the good guy" because another one is even worse. When the only one who seems to care, is the one who feeds you with guns, bullets and drugs..?

When it was decided that Rio got the 2016 Olympics, we all turned our eyes against Rio. About time! I say. And let us keep it that way! 

I hope that one good effect from the 2016 Olympics will be that the World's Eyes will be directed against Brazil during the next few years. So that now we won't hear the news only if the victim is a Norwegian or a Suede, we will hear the news BECAUSE IT HAPPENS IN RIO.

The inhabitants of Rio and Brazil in general need our attention! The 2016 Olympics is a golden opportunity to get just that. 

Read the comments from my São Paulo friend Marcelo, too – he knows a lot more than I do about this.

And so we’re back down in the mud…

But we’ll be back!

I’ll never forget Thiago’s happy e-mail two years ago when they went UP:

“We’re in the Tippileaga!”

You’ll make it again, Thiago!

And I have now been to a very entertaining football game in Bodø!

We have a problem in Bodø/Glimt this season, though. A BIG problem when it comes to football. Through many games we have been the leading team, but we haven’t been able to score goals! It almost ended that way today again. But fortunately, three minutes overtime, Stig scored a very important goal.

That may in fact save us. Maybe 1-1 wasn’t enough – but at least we got that one point.

I hope and pray for the last two games now…

Today is the Day. Bodø/Glimt is visited by Tromsø IL.

The two teams of Northern Norway meet again, and we have the Battle of Northern Norway. Bodø/Glimt is in a very bad position at the moment – we may drop to the 2nd division if we don’t win. But this is so much more! It’s a fight for pride and honor in the North!

When Tromsø IL visits Bodø we are really sharpened. This is a game that we are going to win!

It’s my first time in Bodø to experience the Battle of Northern Norway. I’m really looking forward to it.

Wish me luck!

I went to Oslo the other day. I take a trip to our capital once in a while, but going by tram is not daily routine for me. So I asked the driver:

“Do you take VISA?” (I had no cash.) “We’ve never taken credit cards as payment on the tram!” he answered with a big grin. “So I’ll have to take a chance and ride for free, then?” I asked. “Because I just have to get to the hospital till one o’clock!”

The driver told me it was my choice – but if we were controlled, he couldn’t help me…

Then suddenly a woman spoke,  “Here you are, I’ll pay your ticket,” she said.

I hardly knew what to say. A foreigner just paid my ticket. 36 kroner, that’s more than 6 dollars!

“I probably won’t ever have the possibility to pay you back,” I said to her.

“That’s OK, just you pay it forward some time,” she said.

    ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

What a wonderful experience! And it so much reminds me of the movie “Pay it forward”.

Do you know that movie? It’s such a wonderful story about a little boy who tries to help people. Recommended!

In fact I just found out that there is also a Pay it Forward Foundation!