This is the blog of a Norwegian (Marianne, aka 'M') who moved to Australia in 2007 to be with Roger (aka R) and feels lucky to have escaped a comparatively communistic country with ridiculous weather!

I checked on all the fish last night when I fed them. The silver molly was just as fat as ever, and I thought 'wonder when she'll have her babies'.

Then this morning I had a look in the tank and saw something swimming around a plant and thought 'wtf was that?!' then it ocurred to me that it might be a baby.. I had a closer look and found 13 baby mollies. They are so adorable! And so big! I expected them to be tiny, but they're about 1.5 cm, not including the tailfin. Good for them, or they would prolly end up as food for the others.

I deliberately did not do anything to prepare for the arrival of the babies, I figured any fry that's not fast enough to escape being eaten, would not survive in the wild. That way, only the ones with strong genes will survive. I think they way some people do it where they seperate the fry from any threat and they all survive is just unnatural.

My mollies were kept with both silver and black mollies at the store, as well as sailfin mollies, so it will be interesting to see what colour they will be.

The other silver molly is also pregnant, and I suspect that both the swordtails are also pregnant.

Fish are not easy to take photos of. They constantly move.

I don't like the sound of the Norwegian language. It sounds stupid and it annoys me. It always sounds like people are angry at each other when they speak, even when they're being happy and friendly, and for Norwegian news readers it sounds sooo fake. They prolly think they sound really professional, but they sound more like bad actors. I also hate the sound of me speaking Norwegian. I feel and sound silly.

I never noticed this before I stopped hearing people speak Norwegian around me all the time. R noticed it on his first visit to Norway.

The written language doesn't bother me, I use that all the time in forums and MSN.

I have decided to get rid of gravel in my fish tank and replace it with sand. Both because it will look better and because the loaches constantly dig in it, and I reckon they will enjoy it more if it's softer. I have two demands: 1. it must be the same colour as beach sand 2. it cannot have any sharp edges.

A lot of the sand you get is made from crushed rocks = sharp edges. So I asked in the Australian fish forum:

"where do you get your sand from? It has to be smooth, nothing with sharp edges, for all the fish that like to dig in it and bury themselves... How's the sand you get at Bunnings for example?"

Pretty straight forward question eh? Or so I thought. Then followed about 5 replies where I was told how much extra maintenance sand is, what to do with the filter, what a big problem it is to get plants to grow in it etc, and one person suggested I have a look at the local pet store.

I thought that was pretty silly, so I said

"just figured it would be cheaper to get it at Bunnings or similar places, as pet stores tend to overprice gravel and sand... So no one has used sand from Bunnings?

No one actually answered my question. I asked where you get sand from, and I'm told sand is too much maintanence (which was not my question) and what to do with my filter and plants etc.. No one actually told me where they get their sand from, or where would be a good place to get it, except one person who suggested the pet store. The rest were completely off topic. Kinda frustrating, as I asked the question last night, hoping to be able to go and get sand today, but now I can't, because no one has told me anything useful."

One of the moderators then replied:

"you can buy sand from any hardware store building supply store or landscaping supplies -- its a no brainer...Sorry

There is always the option of the yellow pages ...or even the internet.. "

So he's basically telling me that I should have googled it, rather than ask my question in a forum! As if my question was 'where can I buy sand?' rather than 'where can I buy sand that has no sharp edges?'

I googled it. Seemed like it would be quicker anyway. In about 1 minute I found another forum and got the names of 5 different kinds of sand, all sold at Bunnings, which would be suitable for an aquarium.

I went back to the original forum, and told them that because no one answered my question, I googled it, and found the answer I needed, and that from now on I will google stuff, rather than ask questions in their forum.

The reply from the moderator was:

"Before you go off on a tangent from your shoutbox, take some time to consider.....

Who do you think pays for the forum to be available to members for advice??

Please refrain from offending the mods that allow this site to operate, and the Sponsers who pay for the site to operate....

You asked a question, and had several responces....

Thankyou to the members who gave their opinions on the matter. And Thankyou to the Mods for offering there time to manage this site out of their own generosity, care and love for our hobby."

Apparently, asking that people reply to the actual question is offensive to the moderators.

Basically, they all assumed that because I asked where to get the right sand, I must have no clue about sand in the aquarium, and they all started telling me what it's like to use sand instead of gravel. I actually researched the whole sand thing thoroughly first, before I decided to make the swap, and asking where to get it was the very last thing I needed to know.

Things like this make me think Norwegian forums are better.

Finally got some photos of my fish. Not easy, because the camera is messed up and refuses to focus most of the time. R sat down and took about 150 photos of the fish, and 20 of them turned out to be in focus. Yay:)

Molly fry:

Swordtails:

Dalmatian molly:

Red tailed black shark, or as it's called in Norry, Firetail (ildhale):

(I prefer the Norwegian name)

and lastly, a Pakistani loach:

On Friday, we are flying down to Melbourne for the Formula 1 Grand Prix. Roger and some of his friends love this sport, and I don't mind it, so we thought it'd be fun.

The tickets were bought several months ago:

We are in the Jones stand, which means we have the best tickets possible.

So we leave Friday afternoon, and will return Monday afternoon, and we are staying at Bronwyn's place, who is an old friend of Roger's.

What's with women having kids and then expecting their workplace to support their little 'hobby'?

Everyone keeps seeing this from the women's perspective. Roger runs a small business, so we see it from a different perspective. Roger says 'imagine if I hired someone, and she went and got pregnant, and then got 6 months maternity leave. We'd have to pay her for 6 months - for doing nothing! It's not my fault she got pregnant, why should I be punished?'

That's one of the reasons why Roger never hires anyone, he only takes people on as freelance contractors. That way he won't have to pay for their sicknesses and kids.

The way I see it, people shouldn't go and have kids unless they can afford to take time off work and support themselves. I mean, that's what adults do. Support themselves. But as soon as they get knocked up, they revert to their teens and demand to be supported by others.

The last thing we should be doing is to encourage people to have kids. First of all, we can't feed all the kids which are already here, and second, having a kid will do more damage to the environment than a whole lifetime of recycling and offsetting carbon emissions can make up for.

The government should encourage people to not have kids. Punish them for it if they do, and reward people for adopting instead.

We just dropped Julie off at the vet's. The reason for going there is that Julie has gotten really skinny, hardly eats (that I know of) and constantly whinges. I thought it might be an issue with her teeth, which made it painful for her to eat. So we took her to the vet to rule out that there's anything physically wrong with her.

I told the vet why we were there, and he had a look at her teeth and said they look fine for her age. He felt her tummy, and weighed her. She is 3.3 kg. Last time she was weighed was about a year ago, and she was 3.8 then. It's only 500 grams, but it's actually 15% of her body weight, and she was skinny to begin with.

He said he couldn't find any reason for her losing weight, and said unless they do blood and urine tests, they will have no idea what's wrong. So we decided to leave her there for a couple hours so they can draw blood and urine, and they should have the results tomorrow morning.

The tests are pretty expensive, but anything for my Julie. And I do hope they find something, cuz then we can fix it, but if there's nothing wrong with her that means she's acting funny and losing weight and there's nothing we can do.

They also said she's at that age where things can start to go wrong, such as kidney and liver function. A thyroid problem was also suggested.

I have noticed a big difference in English speaking forums and Norwegian forums. I don't have that much experience with English speaking ones (unlike Roger), but I do spend a lot of time in Norwegian ones.

In Norwegian forums you can disagree and discuss things and no one gets offended and will still be friendly towards you once you've finished discussing a certain topic. You will simply agree to disagree and move on. Discussion is even encouraged, it's considered a healthy way to be made to think about stuff. A lot of the time moderators will join in. It can get quite heated, and no one will mind. Moderators won't interfere as long as people stay on topic. Stupid posts will usually just be ignored.

In English speaking ones, heated discussions or discussions about controversial topics are discouraged. You can have discussions, but as soon as it gets heated moderators will see it as an opportunity to go on a power trip and try to end it (for what reason I have no clue - it's only text afterall).  People usually take it personally if you start an argument with them, and a lot of the time revert to their childhood school days with personal insults and childish retorts.

I prefer Norwegian ones.

Melbourne was fun:) Too bad I forgot to get some Melbourne souvenirs... but I do have a F1 cap and the ticket, so I guess that will do.

We arrived in Melbourne Friday afternoon, and were picked up by Roger's sister Zara and her daughter Rhiannon. We went back to their place and ordered pizza. Then we went to Roger and Olivia's old friend who we would be staying with and hung out the rest of the evening.

Saturday morning we left at 9 am, and it was a 45 minute walk to the park where the F1 Grand Prix was being held. There were heaps of shows and displays before the qualifying. And it was hot! about 35 degrees, very low humidity, and we were walking around in the sun all day. But it didn't really bother me, after about 20 minutes I got used to it. We walked home around 5 pm, and I had a much wanted shower. Then we went out to a Chinese restaurant.

Sunday was the day of the race, but we went to a flea market first. I can't believe all the rubbish people think they can sell, such as notebooks which have been written in, among other crap I wouldn't hesitate to throw away. Then we went and had brunch, which for me consisted of a chocolate thickshake.

At 12 we arrived at the GP and watched various displays before the actual race. I'm not even into F1, but even I found it interesting. There were crashes all over the place, and only 8 out of 22 cars finished.

There was a KISS concert after the race, which we were gonna hang around for, but it turned out that to get anywhere near enough to actually see them, we would be deafened by the sound, so we couldn't be bothered. We walked home instead, and had subway for dinner on the way. Then we spent the rest of the evening watching tv and doing stuff on the computer.

Our host chatted quite happily with R and O whenever she was around, but she didn't say one word to me the whole weekend. Not one word. When she had a question about me, she directed it to R instead of me. She avoided eye contact the whole time. Not that it bothered me much. I found her annoying anyway.

We had also bought a soft drink and some chocolate to enjoy after the race on Sunday, but while we were out our host started on and finished the drink, and finished nearly all the chocolate. So we came home sweaty, dirty and exhausted, only to find that we had no snacks for the evening. We weren't really in the mood to go out and get more. Guess someone has forgotten their manners...

Here's the view from where we were sitting, taken during the race:

More photos will be posted at my photo site soon.

R and I went for a walk as usual today. As we approached the duckpond, we saw a shirtless guy with a lot of tattoos with 2 dogs. I thought he was just playing with them, because they were partly hidden behind some bushes and I saw movement. R suddenly started walking towards them, I asked 'where are we going?' and R said he'd seen the guy hit the dog.

The guy walked along for a bit, untangling leashes and such. Then one of the dogs lay down and refused to move. And what did the guy do? He gave the dog a solid kick to the ribs. I couldn't believe what I'd just seen.

R instantly went into attack mode, he can't tolerate people who abuse animals. He shouted at him, the guy turned, and R shouted at him not to abuse animals. The guy got pissed off and started telling us how his dog had just attacked someone else's dog, to which we said it would be too late to punish him for that now, as it wouldn't understand what it was being punished for.

The guy then asked 'whatcha gonna do? Hit me?' R was pretty pissed off and threatened to call the cops and the RSPCA, and the guy said 'yeah, whatever'. R then said 'If I see you kick the dog again, I'll be kicking you in the head'. The guy said 'Then I'll have you up on assault' and R said, 'I dont care if you do, I dont care if I kill you if it means protecting a an animal from a retard like you!' and then asked 'what's hitting your dog gonna do?' and the guy replied 'shut him up'. The dog hadn't been making a noise, it was just lying on the ground doing nothing when the guy kicked it. We told him that and there was a lot more heated comments from R and all the while the guy was backing away trying to leave. He then claimed that the 'dog is so well taken care of, look at him, I love my dog'. Which obviously he doesn't if he can kick it for no good reason, prolly just using him for his personal powertrip. Some men need to be abusive to make themselves feel like men.

It continued along those line for a couple of minutes, we got backed up by another guy with a dog who told him he'd be helping R kick him in the head too if he does it again and to learn how to train his dog. We also had an audience in the form of about 7 teenage boys.

After more arguing and scathing words from R the guy decided to leave and started pulling his dogs away. The dog who had been kicked sat down and refused to move, and we pointed out that obviously the dog is scared of him cuz he kicked it. But then he got the dog moving and we ended it with 'we'll be watching you' and started walking the other way.

R later told me he saw him hit the dog with a closed fist when the dog came to him. So that's prolly the root of the problem. Obviously the dog will not come on command when it gets punished for it.

I don't normally think a lot about Norway or the Norwegian government. It's something I've known in the back of my head my whole life, but not really thought about.

So the other day when R asked me who the prime minister of Norway is, I turned to him confidently, opened my mouth to say his name, and then froze. I couldn't remember, and still cannot remember who it is. I seriously have no clue. And it took less than a year after leaving Norway to forget. It's fascinating. It's like there's a piece of my brain missing.

The old media centre messed up the other day, and R has been trying to fix it. It was some kind of messed up software problem. After spending all day yesterday on it and a few hours this morning, he managed to tear himself away long enough for us to go to the shopping centre.

At the shopping centre, we stumbled across a tiny, very kewl looking media centre pc, with all the required software already installed, wireless keyboard and mouse and a media centre remote control. It was a bit expensive, but it was so kewl that R managed to justify buying it:)

It's an Acer Aspire L3600:

Sexy eh? Only thing we don't like about it is that it comes with Vista. Neither I nor R has had anything to do with Vista since we uninstalled it in June last year, so I was interested to see if it's improved at all. You know how when Vista was new, everyone kept saying that they were just early startup bugs and they would be fixed? Wrong. They haven't been.

Here's a screenshot from when R was working on it:

And here's what happened when he moved the window over the start menu:

I mean, come on! Seriously! How obvious is that bug? (you can click on images for bigger versions)

All the annoying security stuff is still there. When R did something as evil and dangerous as rearranging the programs on the start menu, it first popped up a window saying 'you need to confirm this operation' and then after he clicked confirm, it popped up a second window saying 'User account control - windows needs your permission to continue' and he then had to click continue. So first it asks him if he really wants to do this, for something as trivial as rearranging shortcuts, and then it asks him 'do you really really wanna do this?'

He also tried to delete a 1.5 kb shortcut from the desktop, and it spent about 5 minutes 'calculating time remaining' and of course you're not allowed to do anything else on your computer while it does that. Nothing will respond when you click on it. When he finally decided to cancel deleting, the whole computer locked up and had to be restarted.

So all you Vista lovers out there: You are wrong. Vista sucks, and they will not fix the bugs.

A lot of authors of Norwegian blogs refuse to link to English speaking blogs. So that means I can comment in their blogs regularly, link to them on my site, but still not end up on their blogrolls. They only wanna link to other Norwegian blogs.

I don't really care how many people link to my blog, I just find it kinda silly.

Here's prolly the most americanised country in Europe, boycotting English speaking blogs! They don't boycott English from their language. Very few people actually speak Norwegian anymore, most young people and people in the larger cities speak a fine blend of Norwegian and English.

Whenever there's a new invention of some kind, you hardly ever see Norwegians making up a new name for it. They'll just norwegianify the English word. They use the word 'f**k' instead of the Norry equivalent, and in stores, you'll hear a lot of people say 'thank you' instead of 'takk'.

Most Norwegian singers write and sing their songs in English. Whenever a Norry artist make it their trademark to write their songs in Norwegian, it's considered kind of an oddity, and everyone will comment on how cool it is that a Norwegian sings in Norwegian, and not treat it like something to be expected.

When R was in Norway with me 2 years ago, he wanted to find a shirt with Norwegian writing on it, to keep as a souvenir. We went through every single clothing store in 3 different shopping centres, and we asked the staff. Every single piece of clothing had English writing on it. He ended up getting a hoodie with a Norry brand name on it. It was the only thing we could find that was Norwegian.

I felt rather embarassed showing R around Norway, because R kept asking me 'why is there English writing everywhere? Are Norwegians ashamed of their language?'

A lot of ads are in English. They simply import the Usatian ad for something and don't bother to translate it. Most of the time they don't even add subtitles. In some cases they will make the ad to look like it was made in Usa.

So Norries seem to love the English language. But when it comes to blogging, you'll be frowned upon if you write in English. If you do, you're 'ashamed' of your own language, and people will be asking 'you're Norwegian, why not write in Norwegian?'

I don't write in English because I'm ashamed. I do it because my blog can then be read by a lot more people, including all of my English speaking friends.

And if that means a lot of Norwegian bloggers will boycott me, then they are being silly.

I have a very 'primitive' version of XP on my computer. It doesn't have service pack 2. I once installed sp2 on my old laptop, and had nothing but problems and annoyances with it. The security stuff and warnings that pop up are ridiculous. Not even half as bad as Vista, but still.

So I have chosen to not install sp2. So what, you say? Well it would all be fine and dandy, you'd think it would be my choice what I install or not install on my own computer. But it's not.

See, more and more programs are now demanding that I have sp2, or they won't let me install the program. I will download it, and try to run it, and before it even starts to install, it will tell me I need sp2 to install this program. Such as the new version of MSN messenger and the driver for my webcam, just to mention a couple.

So whoever is making programs out there are basically trying to tell me what I should install on my own computer. MY computer, which I paid for, so that I could do whatever I want with it. If I feel like setting fire to my computer or throwing it out the window, I can. No one can tell me what to do with my own property. Except programmers who for some reason have that right.

Who are they to tell me what to install? Why do they even care if I have sp2 installed? It doesn't affect them.