I will be judged and criticized…

…for what I am doing now. Some people have recently been overly critical of my behavior, but most have been very happy for me. The thing I am talking about is my new relationship with Kei. The thing I am attacked for is that it’s so quickly after Amy. Well I am not master of all things, I am real and I listen to my heart and my emotions. Sometimes it gets me into trouble, but it is who I am. I won’t apologize for being me, for having feelings. I know I am not a bad person.

The thing with Amy is that for me, it ended in the beginning of December. I remember crying a lot and asking why it happened. It was like a real break up. I mentally prepared for it, because I knew it was coming. I have been discussing it with a lot of people and they all say it wasn’t really love what we had, but an infatuation and obsession. We came to the point that we would rather die than be apart, and I know that was wrong and dangerous. I lost control. I’m sorry I’m not perfect, I’m sorry for being human. So judge and criticize me all you want, it won’t change who I am and it certainly won’t affect my situation because I see a long term future with this girl.

Now for the part you all want to hear ;). Her name is Kemala, she is 26 and Indonesian. We have been talking on and off for a while and in the last couple of days we have told each other what we really feel. We share the same passions, dreams and interests and the “connection” as I like to call it in lack of better words. She runs her own event planning, programs for TV business. Yes, it’s another long distance relationship. I can only imagine what you reading this must be thinking. “Not again! Don’t you ever learn?” Well I am not in a position to decide who I fall for, at least not emotionally.

So I am officially in a relationship, not single anymore, and I plan to stay that way thank you very much! Besides, I do have some experience in long distance relationship, and I know it can work as long as we both care for each other enough. I am of course afraid that I will be hurt again, but I put that aside and trust this girl 100%. When I go into a relationship I am 100% committed to it, and I don’t want it any other way. I will follow my heart and I believe it will lead me to happiness. It will be hard. I just got a new job and I’m moving to England, but we plan to meet, maybe already this year if possible.

So there you have it. This is me, and that’s the way it gonna be :).

A new beginning

Well today marks the start of a new beginning in my life. I choose to look at it like that, a new start, not that my last 30 years has been any bad, but there’s something exciting about a new start. That’s right, for those of you who don’t know, today is my 30^th birthday and I have to tell you that it has started wonderfully. I woke up with a big smile on my face. Everything is going really good right now, in fact it’s amazing. I have a new job that I will start in a week from now, I am moving to a new exciting country, I am done with the 20s (wohooo) and get this… I have a new girlfriend (It’s official as of today, hehe). It’s pretty new so I’ll tell you about it later…

Yep, I am a big believer in karma, and the good stuff is raining down on me right now. After all I have been through lately the universe owes me and so far it has not disappointed. In other great news, I have been invited to a BBQ in the south of Manchester on May 19^th. How cool is that? I simply started looking for friendly people in Manchester on Facebook and there it was. I’m really looking forward to that. I get to eat great food, drink beers, have fun and most importantly, meet new interesting people.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

The final party

Yesterday, I attended my birthday party. The mood was unmistakable a happy one, but at the back of my head I realized that this is the last night out with “the gang”. In a few days I will move to England, and meet new friends and have new parties. I guess that’s the way it goes, at least for me.

I brought a Chinese girl, a Swiss girl and a Japanese guy to the party to make it an international one. I haven’t laughed so much in a long while. It was especially fun to go out with one of my best friends growing up. I really have missed that. It’s funny how we still have these inside jokes that works every time.

We went to this hip place called “The Tea Lounge”. I had never been there before, and I met a lot of new people. The music was kind of old-school 80s, and the atmosphere was great! I had a few beers, a mojito and a smoothie. There was even cake, made by the Swiss girl.

We all got safely home, and I’m happy to report that only a minor hangover is troubling me today. Oh, and I got this great gift my Chinese friend. A calligraphy pen with no need for an ink refill and she made this wonderful card with a picture of her. On the back it said: Dear Jørn, if the bounds between heaven and earth are broke. Prayer is not enough. Only a story can mend it. Keep going your writer’s dream!

The LOVE charts

So I had nothing to do while I was waiting for important phone calls. Here’s what I did. I took the top 25 tracks in the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Country and Modern Rock for the years 1985, 1995 and 2005 and checked how many times the word “love” occurs in the lyrics during those years. What I found was interesting. Ok, enough talk, here’s the numbers

So we see here that in the normal mainstream chart Hot 100, it almost hasn’t changed at all! It’s weird though that it is so similar. Has nothing changed in music? Just for comparison, I did 1975 too and it got 64 (3 of the songs were instrumentals). Ok, let’s go to Country:

The same pattern is here as well; almost the same, but we see a slight decline. In 2015 it should be 41 times. I’ll post an update then to see if I was right :P. What is interesting though is that there is about 15% less love in countryland. Or maybe it is too much love there, so they sing about something else. Right, then how about the rockers?

Now here we see some real changes and might I add disturbing changes. By this rate there will soon be no love anymore. What will they be singing about? Well the tendency is scary. They sing about pain 13 times in 2005, so pain is apparently better than love when it comes to us music conscious buyers. Pain was only used once in 1995 and that was in the song “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” from “The Smashing Pumpkins”.

So to the grand finale. What about me? What about my top 25 songs for each year. Brace yourself ladies and gentlemen; you are in for a shock (as was I).

I was all lovin’ in 85, and look what happened? I was way above the charts; in fact I must have been the poster boy for love. I was 8 for crying out loud! I must have been a very disturbed kid back then running around with flowers in my hair looking like a cross between Freddy Fender and Mother Theresa which would be something like this: I can’t blame my sister either, because she used to blast hard rock in my ears. In 95 I was down to Hot 100 level, but in 2005 I was worse than the country charts. I’ll report back in 2015 when I have gotten married and my 5 kids Joe, Zoe, Lacey, Casey and Monty are selling drugs in the backyard with uncle Frank.

It’s looking good!

Here’s what I listened to in 1985 (Sorted alphabetically): A Ha - Take On Me, Alphaville - Forever Young, Autograph - Turn Up The Radio, Bon Jovi - In & Out Of Love, Bruce Springsteen - Born In The USA, Bryan Adams – Somebody, Bryan Adams - Summer Of '69, Chicago - You're The Inspiration, Don Henley - The Boys Of Summer, Duran Duran - A View To A Kill, Foreigner - I Wanna Know What Love Is, Heart – Never, Heart - What About Love, Hooters - And We Danced, Huey Lewis & The News - The Power Of Love, John Parr - St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion), Kiss - Tears Are Falling, Limahl - Never Ending Story, Lionel Richie - Say You, Say Me, Madonna - Crazy For You, Paul Young - Everytime You Go Away, REO Speedwagon - Can't Fight This Feeling, Simple Minds - Alive And Kicking, Starship - We Built This City, USA For Africa - We Are The World

Here’s what I listened to in 1995 (Sorted alphabetically , I am embarrassed by a few songs here): 2 Unlimited - Get Ready For This, Alanis Morissette - Hand In My Pocket, Alison Krauss - When You Say Nothing At All, Annie Lennox - No More I Love You's, Blessid Union Of Souls - I Believe, Bon Jovi - Something For The Pain, Bruce Springsteen - Secret Garden, Corona - The Rhythm Of The Night, The Corrs – Runaway, Des'ree - You Gotta Be, Diana King - Shy Guy, Dr. Dre - Keep Their Heads Ringin', Edwyn Collins - A Girl Like You, Elton John – Blessed, Foreigner - Until The End Of Time, The Human League - Tell Me When, Jamie Walters - Hold On, Michael Jackson - You Are Not Alone, Pearl Jam – Jeremy, Rednex - Cotton Eye Joe, Shaggy – Boombastic, Sheryl Crow - Strong Enough, Skee-Lo - I Wish, Take That - Back For Good, Tina Turner – Goldeneye

Here’s what I listened to in 2005 (Sorted alphabetically): Avril Lavigne - Nobody's Home, Backstreet Boys – Incomplete, Coldplay - Fix You, Foo Fighters - Best Of You, Gavin Degraw - I Don't Want To Be, Goo Goo Dolls - Better Days, Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends, Gwen Stefani – Cool, Howie Day – Collide, Jason Mraz – Wordplay, Jay-Z & Linkin Park - Numb-Encore, Keane - Somewhere Only We Know, Kelly Clarkson - Behind These Hazel Eyes, Korn - Twisted Transistor, Lifehouse - You And Me, Mario - Let Me Love You, Missy Elliott Featuring Ciara & Fat Man Scoop - Lose Control, Nickelback – Photograph, Papa Roach – Scars, Rascal Flatts - Bless The Broken Road, Sara Evans - A Real Fine Place To Start, Simple Plan - Untitled (How Can This Happen To Me), Sugarland - Baby Girl, Tim McGraw - Live Like You Were Dying, Tommy Lee - Good Times

My next blog will probably be Sunday because I will be partying tomorrow celebrating my 30^th
birthday! It’s officially on Monday, but partying on Monday isn’t so cool. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

2146 unread messages

I have a confession to make. I love RSS. I am addicted to it really. I want to know what’s happening in the world and if I miss something, I don’t know what would happen. If you don’t know what RSS is you should check it out. Every major newspaper and sites have RSS-feeds, even your own Yahoo 360 blog. The advantages by using RSS is that whenever a site get’s updated, you will know it immediately. I use a program called Snarfer which is free and does the job great.

Right now I subscribe to Digg, Fark, AskShane, Blogbash, Converstations, Copyblogger, Dailyblogtips, Northxeast, Problogger, Selfmademinds, Comingsoon, Ain’t it cool news, Buzzfeed, Cinematical, KVR news, Apple movie trailers, Mashable, PSP updates, Scorereviews, Soundtracknet, Thefutoncritic, Trektoday, TV Squad, Wayodd, Dumb little man, Lifehacker, Zen Habits + a lot of Norwegian newspapers and sites.

The thing about RSS though, is that you can’t be lazy about it. If you are, like I am, then you get the situation as titled in my topic. Right now I have 2155 unread messages which means it increases as I write this. The good thing about having so much unread messages is that whenever I am bored I can just go into Snarfer and check out a lot of stuff I haven’t read before.

So who here uses RSS and why?

The decision is…

Well it has been another exciting day, especially around 3pm when they called me from England. I was really happy that they offered me the job. That meant I had two options. Option 1: Stay here in Oslo, Norway or option 2: Move to Manchester, England.

It was a really hard decision to make. I put up lists and consulted friends and family, but in the end, the decision was mine. I chose Manchester, England. Some were disappointed by my decision, and some were delighted. I think I have made the right choice. The positive thing about the job in Norway was:

- Higher wages
- Safety/Security
- Pension points
- Don’t need to move
- Job is probably more varied and exciting
- Close to family and friends

The positive things about England was:

- Location (Only 1 hour from my favorite football team Liverpool)
- Possibilities (They have a nice office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia that is a possibility for me)
- Low taxes (22-25%)
- Low living cost
- Huge company (Shell has hundred thousands of employees worldwide, they’re not going bankrupt anytime soon)
- Climate (Much warmer than Oslo and also much less rain)

I think it was the climate thing that tipped it over and also because my team Liverpool won the semifinal of the Champions League yesterday. To be in Liverpool when the final is playing will be amazing. The final is in Athens, but they will probably show it outside on big screens with thousands of people.

So my new employer is Shell in Manchester, England. The new adventures of my life is starting soon. I will move there sometime within the next two weeks. I am so excited and happy right now! It’s a great decision on my part and I will love it!

England or Norway?

Yesterday after my exciting day I didn’t get to sleep until 5am this morning, and I woke up at 8am so I’m pretty tired. Today was also an exciting day. I had a phone interview at 2pm with the people from England. The interview went great and they will let me know tomorrow if I get the job or not. Personally I think it’s mine, and that puts me in quite a dilemma. Tomorrow is the deadline, and I have to make a decision. I really don’t know what I’ll do. I have changed my mind so many times since the phone call, and the day is still young.

And another thing, I have never had to turn down a job before, I have never been in that position. It’s great and scary at the same time. The choice I will make will be permanent and I have to live with it for quite some time. But I’d rather have the choice than none at all. Well, one thing doesn’t stop and that’s time, so no matter what a choice will be made tomorrow.

I have tried to put up a pros/cons list, but it doesn’t work for me, and I have seen at rent prices, living costs and so on. There are so many factors that ultimately will sway me in one way or the other. I just wish the path ahead was a little clearer, but I’ve been here before, at the crossroads. Anyway, back to my interesting dilemma of the day: Pint or Brown cheese