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!

When I started my small fish tank early in March, I fell in love with a fish called the Nigerian killi. After asking in various forums I found out that killis are very rare in Australia. Only serious breeders keep them, and only very few species of them. I looked everywhere for a breeder in my area with no luck.

So eventually I gave up and resigned to the fact that I would never get killis. That's when I bought my fighter fish. After my fighter fish recently died, I decided to turn my small tank into a shrimp tank, after being told repeatedly how fun and fascinating shrimp are. So on Saturday we went to the pet store in search of colourful shrimp. After asking and finding out that they didn't have shrimp, I had a look around at their fish. Great was my surprise when I stumbled across a tank full of Nigerian killis!

I had to get 2 of them. I ended up getting 2 males, because the friendly staff member told me they breed really easily, and because the males are really colourful while the females are plain and boring.

I have killis:D

A few months ago I was checking the weather forecast on a Norwegian weather site called yr.no. R looked over my shoulder and pointed out that they've swapped around 12 pm and 12 am, which you can see an example of here. On the map on the right you can see that the clock goes from 11 am to 12 am to 1 pm, and from 11 pm to 12 pm to 1 am. So they are using 12 am for noon and 12 pm for midnight. I thought 'how embarrassing for them' and wrote them an email and pointed out their error.

Their reply said "there's a lot of disagreement on whether 12 noon is 12 pm or 12 am in the English speaking world. We let noon be 12 am and midnight 12 pm which is how USA and most British newspapers do it. Thanks for your feedback."

That didn't make sense to me, as I've never seen any 'disagreement' on it before. Everywhere I've looked 12 pm is noon. So I looked it up.

Here's what Wikipedia says:

and:

So no, that's not how Usa does it.

And if you look in the actual article - here - you will see a big table on the right hand side of the page where it clearly says 12 am is midnight. Further down on the page, in the section called "Confusion at noon and midnight" there is another table which shows that everyone refers to noon as either '12 pm' or '12 noon'. The only institution which refers to noon as '12 am' is the U.S. Government Printing Office. 

The friendly staff member at yr.no was obviously wrong, so I replied to his email and told him all this. His reply was 'My mother tongue is English, so I consider myself a bit of an expert on this topic:) Have a look at Wikipedia's article on the 12 hour clock [here he included a link to the article I just quoted to him] and scroll down to the section on confusion. Of course what we should do is say '12 noon' and '12 midnight', but our computers don't allow it:("

So he completely ignored what I said in my email, and as you can see on their site, it hasn't been changed.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, nearly all Australians own an electric blanket. The reason for this is that it's very nice to get into a warm bed at night, instead of lying there shivering and freezing until the bed warms up. Of course, it doesn't get that cold in this part of Australia, but it's still nice to have a pre-warmed bed now that it's winter. I know that because we have recently purchased an electric blanket and my bed is always nice and warm when I retire for the evening.

I only recently discovered the wonders of the electric blanket. We stayed at R's parents' house in Emu Plains a couple of weeks ago. It gets quite cold there in winter, so R's mum had put the electric blanket on for us. I couldn't believe how lovely it was to get into a warm bed! That was the first time I ever experienced an electric blanket, and I don't think I will ever forget the experience.

That brings me to Norwegian habits to combat the cold. I grew up in a near-arctic climate, and yet I was 26 the first time I tried an electric blanket. R couldn't believe it when I told him. His comment was 'if there is one country in the world that needs electric blankets, it's Norway'. And he's right.

Norwegians don't like to heat their bedrooms up because they have very thick and warm doonas, and they would get too warm if the room was heated. That's fair enough. But this also means that when they go to bed, the bed is freezing cold. Why do Norwegians put themselves through that?

Here in Australia, people are good at staying warm. You can get wheat packs and slippers which you microwave to warm up, and they stay warm for hours. I hadn't even heard of those until today. And I'm the frostiest person you will ever meet. If the temp drops below 25 degrees, I'll be cold and will be putting my jumper and ugg boots on. Wool fleece underlays for the bed are also very common.

Almost every house in Australia has a garage with an automatic door, and the garage is always built into the house. So that when it rains you don't need to get out of the car to open the garage door, and you don't have to walk from the garage to the house. Clever eh?

You hardly ever see that in Norway. Few houses have garages, and when they do, the door usually needs to be opened manually. Occasionally the garage will be built into the house, but usually it will be a seperate building. So with all the snow and rain in Norway, they don't realise how nice it would be to not have to wipe snow off the car in the morning, not have to get into a freezing cold car and not have to get out of the car to open the garage door when they get home and not have to walk from the garage to the house in a blizzard? The technology already exists, all they have to do is use it.

Another thing which is stupid in Norway is that they insist on having 2 seperate single sized doonas on double beds. Even hotels in Norway do this. When we first walked into our hotel in Oslo in January, R's first comment was 'I think they made a mistake with the doonas'. And it's utterly retarded when you think about it. Yeah, you'll stay warm under your single sized doona, but the reason your in a double bed to begin with is because your with someone you'd like to cuddle up to, especially when it's cold. But you can't because the doona only covers one person, and pulling the doonas together is bound to leave a gap somewhere which allows the cold air to come in under the doona. Why do they do this?! A double sized doona is just as warm as a single sized one, and it allows couples to comfortably cuddle up to each other.

How is it that an arctic country has not thought of good and convenient ways for people to stay warm?

What's with Usatians having to wear massive padding to play some sports? Take American football. The players pretty much wear their own weight in protective gear. And in baseball everyone wears helmets, huge padded gloves and some of them wear full body armour. They really need padded gloves to catch a ball?

American football and baseball are similar to rugby and cricket. In rugby, no one wears any protective gear, and yet the tackles are just as rough as in American football. Rugby has the occasional injury, like any sport, but nothing out of the ordinary. If injuries were a problem, they would wear padding.

In cricket, only the batter wears a helmet and protective leg pads. No one else wears helmets or gloves, or any other protective gear. And cricket balls are smaller and harder than baseballs.

So if a lot of the rest of the world doesn't need gloves to catch a ball, why do Usatians need them? Why do they need to dress up in full body armour to tackle each other? Are they more fragile than the rest of us, or are they just whimps?

I can't say anything China does to animals surprises me anymore. They need to be boycotted and ignored by everyone until they learn to behave like proper humans. They shouldn't be allowed to host the Olympics, considering all the crap they've done to animals because of it.

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If this works in London, then other cities around the world will have no excuse not to follow.

There has been some controversy around Bill Henson's photos of a 13 year old naked girl. The photos were seized by police a couple of weeks ago, the day before the exhibition was supposed to open in some art gallery.

Today they said on the news that the police has decided to drop charges, because they have been told they have no case. The reason was the definition of child pornography, which says that she would have to be depicted in a 'sexual way' for it to be pornographic.

Being photographed naked is sexual! There is no such thing as non sexual naked women. Men WILL perv at naked women, whether they are trying to be sexual or not. I've heard men say they could have a pull while watching an educational video on how to examine your own breasts. They don't care why the woman in the video is feeling her own breasts, they only see a woman fondling herself.

(Of course the 13 year old is not a 'woman' but a child, but she had breasts, and the photos show her breasts, making 'woman' a more accurate description of her body.)

If an adult woman wants that kind of attention from men, that's her choice. She will know that's how men will see her, as a sexual object, and she will be mentally mature enough and ready to accept that kind of attention. A 13 year old should not have to deal with that kind of attention from men. She is a child, and doesn't understand what she's doing or how men will see her. Not to mention that she will most likely regret her decision to be naked in public as she grows older. (I think we all know that the things we thought were a good idea at the age of 13, are usually not.)

Henson said he's had massive support from the public. I reckon the only people who would support him would be paedophiles, and I reckon Henson is a paedophile for wanting to take the photos. He prolly had a good perv while taking them.

I've been a member of deviantart for about a year. I became a member when I was learning photoshop, because I wanted to post my stuff and let people comment on it and how I could improve, and also so I could look at other people's stuff and learn from them.

But now I'm so fed up with the site that I'm tempted to delete my account. The site is full of immature kids who treat the whole thing like a popularity contest. They don't draw what they want to draw and then post it for other people to give feedback on. They post what is popular to draw, which is usually anime and furries with huge breasts, and in their comment they say 'hope you like it', as if the only reason they drew it was so other people would like it, and consequently, them.

I sometimes commented on other people's stuff, which usually turned out disastrous. My comment would be something along the lines of 'This is good, I like this and this, but here's how you could make it even better...' Which sent them into an abusive fit towards me, and all their fans would be falling over each other trying to defend the 'artist' from what they saw as an attack on them. Or, alternatively, they would go to one of my drawings and leave a similar comment, except their comment would have no foundation in what I actually drew. Very mature.

And when one of these little kids gets a lot of views and comments on something they did, they will try to reproduce it and milk it for as long as possible, because it's all about being the most popular. When someone who's good at what they do gets a lot of views and comments, everyone else who's less 'popular' will do similar stuff in an attempt to become popular. (Hence why the site is full of the same kind of drawings, and is lacking in original thought.)

Most people in there are not looking for drawings/paintings which are artistically well done, they are all just looking for cute stuff. I have noticed this personally. I have posted stuff that took me the better part of 2 days to make and perfect, and I have done really simple stuff which required hardly any thought or effort on my part. And which one gets the most views and favourites? The latter of course. I'm gonna delete it, because it annoys me that people are more interested in what's cute than what's actually well done and looks good.

The site just shits me these days.

We just got a phone call from AIS who handled our visa application for us - it was approved:) They said the application was so good we don't need to go in for an interview with the immigration people.

So now I have the right to stay in Australia for the next 2 years, I also have full work rights and am part of Medicare (yay free health service:)). In 2 years they will review it and if R and I are still together I become a permanent resident.

Yay:)

Norway has a law which says that if you have a garden pond, you are not allowed to keep any fish in it apart from goldfish and koi.

I find this law exceptionally stupid. The reason for this law is apparently that they don't want fish which don't belong in the Norwegian fauna to spread. Fair enough.

Here's the stupid part: Koi and goldfish are coldwater fish. They will thrive if released in the Norwegian fauna, and already do. Tropical fish have no chance of survival in Norwegian lakes and rivers, because it's too cold for them. The tropical species that *might* survive in the summer, would not make it through the winter. It is illegal to keep tropical fish in Norwegian ponds.

If these fish could spread, they already would have, because there are always idiots who dump unwanted fish in lakes. The only way to stop this from happening would be to ban all tropical fish altogether. So why don't they just make a list of tropical fish that wouldn't survive outside a heated pond, and make them legal?

It doesn't make sense.

That's not the end of the stupidity tho. I spend some time in a Norwegian aquarium forum, and the other day someone in the forum let slip that they keep a betta in their pond. Everyone had a go at them for it, some actually said 'responsible aquarium/fish owners do not keep anything but goldfish and koi in their ponds!' and someone threatened to report him.

Woot?!

They all mostly agree the law is stupid and doesn't make sense, and yet they are saying 'let's sit back and let the stupidity continue', as if they are whipped little sheep.

Whatever happened to democracy? These people are just letting the government make stupid laws which don't make sense and have a little fit when they find out someone is breaking it. Of course one should not break the law normally, but how about protesting once in a while when laws are unnecessary, stupid and don't make sense?

Norway was still a democracy the last time I checked, but it seems Norwegian politicians are on their own little personal power trip and make laws just for the sake of making laws. And why wouldn't they when the population obviously has the attitude that the law must not only be obeyed, but welcomed and embraced, just because it's the law.

Reptiles are illegal to keep in Norway, but some of the people who disagree with this stupid law keep them anyway. Why don't the people who disagree with the pond law keep tropical fish in their pond to make a point? To protest? Or just because they want to?

In this particular forum you are not allowed to even talk about this, because it means you encourage others to break the law. That's why I'm writing a blog entry about it. I was gonna post it in the forum, but the post would be either locked or deleted, so it would be pointless.

Whipped bunch.

I recently finished reading The Persimmon Tree by the Australian author Bryce Courtenay. I bought it on impulse one day I was at the book store, and I bought it because of what it says on the inside of the cover:

Altho my prefered genre in books is Fantasy, I love a good love story.

The story is set in the Pacific during World War II. The Japanese are invading Java, which at the time was occupied by the Dutch. Australian butterfly collector Nick Duncan is in Java looking for a rare butterfly he has wanted all his life, when he meets Anna. Anna is half Dutch, half Javanese, and her and Nick quickly fall in love and get engaged. They are then seperated by the war. Nick is able to leave Java before the Japanese invade, while Anna becomes a captive. 

I won't go into much more detail because some people might want to read the book. Let me just say that as far as love stories go, this isn't a good one. Anna becomes obsessed with staying a virgin because she wants Nick to be her first one. Nick, on the other hand, sleeps with everything that moves throughout the book, starting about a month after he left Anna. There is no sign he even feels remotely bad about it. The book doesn't even have a good romantic ending.

I don't know what other people expect from a love story, but I expect at least some romance and.. well, love. It's a good story of how things were in the Pacific during WWII, but that's it.

I spose you could say he has done that, a lot of men cheat without a second thought for the women who love them.

To conclude, if you want a love story, don't read this book. If you're interested in WWII stories, then this is a good book for you.

We got an email from a friend of ours on Monday about a cat in desperate need of a foster home. Apparently she was terrorised by the kids in her family, and as a result she started peeing everywhere. The family then decided she wasn't worth keeping. Too much hassle for them. She's been in 3 different foster homes in the last month, and is apparently very traumatised from being moved several times. I don't know why they've kept moving her, but I suspect it could have something to do with the peeing...

So we said we'd help if we could and gave them our contact details. Yesterday they called us and we said we'd take her. They were sooo happy when we decided to take her despite her problems. Everyone else they've called have changed their mind when they've been told about her issues. It's a temporary thing, but if she settles in and gets along with our 4 other cats, we might consider keeping her.

She's a 5 year old Birman/Tonkinese cross. She's gonna stay in our bedroom with access to the outside area until she calms down a bit, then we'll start introducing her to the others. They should be fine, they are so used to being around other cats that I don't think they really care any more. Just don't know if the new kitty is used to other cats or not...

I can't believe someone would decide to get rid of their cat after 5 years. Like they didn't care about her at all. I couldn't live with myself if I ever got rid of one of my cats.

About 2 weeks ago I moved my mystery snail from my 15 litre killi tank to the 90 litre tank, because it was eating all my plants and I wanted to give them some time to recover.

A few days after I moved the snail I did a water change in my 90 litre tank, and when I lifted the hood I found this:

Snail eggs! My snail has not had contact with other snails in the 4 months I've had it, so I assumed the eggs were not fertilised, but then someone in the forum told me snails can store sperm for months. I thought baby snails might be fun, so I kept the eggs.

Today I looked over at my killi tank. It's right next to my computer screen, so I glance over at them once in a while. And I saw something round and small fall from the top of the tank. My first thought was 'Umm.. weird'. So I decided to investigate. I took the hood off the tank and turned it upside down:

Another 2 batches of eggs! The one closest to the camera is hatching, and you can see the little baby snails inside the eggs:

So the thing falling from the top of the tank was actually a tiny snail, and upon closer inspection of the tank, I found heaps and heaps of them:

In the first photo they are the little yellow dots scattered everywhere. They are about 5 mm in size. I've thrown the other 2 batches of eggs away, as I figure on is enough for now.

So my mystery snail suddenly started breeding like a rabbit about 3 weeks ago. Before that I never found eggs anywhere. Weird.

And fun:)

Oh and here's a photo of the proud mummy:

(You can click all the photos for larger versions)

Our new kitty arrived last night, and wanted nothing to do with us. She hissed and growled every time we went near her, so we left her alone. She has the bedroom to herself so she doesn't have to deal with the other cats just yet, and also has access to the outside area during the day.

Today she hasn't been growling as much. She will growl if we surprise her when we enter the room and when she's offered food. She has let R scratch her head a couple of times, but I have yet to touch her at all. R is the cat whisperer. She also has a Feliway diffuser to help her calm down.

She was let out into the outside area in the afternoon, which she seemed to enjoy. The other cats sat and stared at her through the glass door, but she didn't seem to care. She's been an indoor cat and an only cat her whole life, so it must be weird for her to be outside and see other cats, all at once.

Thai has been here 3 days now. She has made massive progress in the short time she's been here, and we have seen no behavioural problems whatsoever. She uses the tray religiously, and she doesn't even make a mess. She hasn't scratched anywhere apart from the scratching post, and she hasn't attacked us.

Apart from the initial hissing and growling at us, she's been fine. When we talk to her she will put her tail up and rub up against something, and when we put our hand out she rubs against it. She doesn't meow, but gives and almost inaudible squeak when we talk to her.

She's turning out to be the perfect cat so far. I emailed Pet Rescue yesterday to tell them how well she's doing, and they are very pleased.

You can see more photos of Thai and our other cats here.