lust & last
there are lots of ads around Stockholm consisting of pixelated 18th-century oil paintings—a marketing ploy by the national museum for their lust & last (“lust & vice”) exhibit. according to the museum: The exhibition Lust & Vice shows examples of how sexuality, virtue and sin have been depicted in art since the 16th century – from an age when the Church … Read More
food lessons from paris
had a nice visit to Paris with my parents, and was surprised to learn a few things about food in France: as expected, the food at most of the random French restaurants we tried was delicious. unexpected: the portions were huge. any dessert that even mentions chocolate is swimming in it. and chocolate shops are everywhere. moules frites: our waitress … Read More
self-service… cash
typical norwegian holidays involve going to a “hytte” (cabin) to get as far away from civilization as possible (unless you’re of retiree age, in which case your holidays consist of living in Spain for several months of the year). from what I’ve gathered, there are two types of hytte: (1) the mountain hytte, where you isolate yourself in the wilderness, … Read More
pedestrianizing torggata
I am often passing by Torggata, so I was pleased to see that they are making the street more pedestrian and bike-friendly! Sort of like what they did with New York’s Time Square, they’ve started painting the road itself–but in this case with green spots:
how Ai Weiwei got his name
well, this is according to Wikipedia, but it’s cool if true: Ai Weiwei’s father was a famous Chinese poet called Aì Qīng (艾青). But that wasn’t his real name; his original name was Jiang Zhenghan (蒋正涵), styled Jiang Haicheng (蒋海澄)–in addition to his numerous pen names. Anyway, this poet was tortured and imprisoned in 1932 for opposing the Kuomintang (KMT) party. While … Read More
exciting natural whale meat!
this weekend I passed by this tent in Aker Brygge, and the signs out front caught my eye: Okay, specifically I was intrigued by “whale wok” (wok is the term in Norwegian for stir-fry) and “whale kebab”. I went in to see if I could find the kebabs, but this is the closest I found: You can’t tell from the … Read More
hobby chocolate
break time! I needed a snack, so I thought I’d try something new–and what better than a retro-looking chocolate bar? oh the excitement… too bad it’s kinda gross. Chocolate covered fake-banana flavoured thing on a layer of marshmallow. ew…
17. mai
Norway’s national holiday… is not really a holiday. At 8:00 in the morning, I woke up hearing a band playing the national anthem?! so I looked out the window: the school across the street was full of dressed-up students and their parents (and a marching band), and they were already making their way out to the day’s main attraction–barnetoget. Basically … Read More
fake tv
latest cool thing at the gadget store: FakeTV simulates the light of a real HDTV television. From outside the house, it looks like someone is home watching TV and the burglar is encouraged to pick an easier target.