Category Archives: Speculations

A lesson to learn from Peter Jackson (or, stating the obvious, part infinity plus eight)

By terje | Published: July 19, 2009
(Disclaimer: The following, while containing at least some opinions the author can sort of be said to hold, is more of an exploration than a presentation of ideas. It should all therefore be taken with a few barrelfuls of salt.) So I’m watching the appendices on the Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition DVD, and as [...]
Also posted in Ambiguity, Annoyance, Art, GRRM, Harry Potter, History, Hodge-podge rambling, Impressions, Language, Literature, Malazan, Movies, Opinions, Rant, Scott Lynch, Speculative fiction, WoT | 3 Comments

Neuropath by Scott Bakker

By terje | Published: September 27, 2008
Neuropath by Scott Bakker 2008. 306 pages (with afterword). Orion TPB. “Only a small fraction of your brain is involved in conscious experience, which is why so much of what we do is unconscious. The bulk of your brain’s processing falls outside what you can experience; it simply doesn’t exist for your consciousness, not even as an absence. That’s why [...]
Also posted in Ambiguity, Conflicting emotions, Discomfort, Education, Help!, Literature, Misery, Pain, Panic, Paranoia, Pessimism, Regret, Revelations, Review, Scepticism, Speculative fiction, Stress, Whoa, Wistfulness | 7 Comments

WALL-E

By terje | Published: September 20, 2008
As I went to see WALL-E (from now on Wall-E, as Nature abhors a shout, even though it’s supposed to be an acronym) last a couple of days ago, I was feeling highly ambiguous and thus also a bit scared. You see, my hopes for this movie were nothing short of astronomic, as just about [...]
Also posted in A Moistening of the Eyes, A Praise Chorus, Ambiguity, Art, Awe, Bliss, Glee, Goosebumps!, Great Expectations, Hodge-podge rambling, Hope, Impressions, Irony, Love, Movies, My microcosmos, Optimism, Pimping, Pleasant surprises, Potential, Rant, Recommendations, Relief, Review, Wistfulness, Yay! | 11 Comments

A Plague! A Plague on Our Houses!

By terje | Published: May 24, 2008
In my Last.fm shoutbox, I was recently asked by one of my readers to post more frequently in my blog, and seeing as your whim is my law, I bring you this: an essay of sorts about the last topic you’d expected me to write about! One of the things you might not know [...]
Also posted in Ambiguity, Annoyance, Boredom, Conflicting emotions, Disappointment, Discomfort, Dumb luck, Evilness, Failed attempts at subtility, Family, Football, Forums, Glee, Gloating, Goosebumps!, Great Expectations, Grief, Hallucinations, Help!, History, Hope, Impressions, Irony, Language, Laziness, Links, Lists, Lotta, Media, Megalomania, Misery, Music, My microcosmos, Norse stuff, Norway, Nostalgia, Oh noes!, Opinions, Optimism, Pain, Panic, Paranoia, Pessimism, Pettiness, Pleasant surprises, Politics, Potential, Pride, Procrastination, Roman stuff, Scepticism, TMI, Television stuff, This Blog, Various, Videos, Weird stuff, Whoa, Why do I think anyone cares?, Wistfulness, Words, Yay!, lol, meh. | 11 Comments

Some things I suspect I believe to be true

By terje | Published: April 22, 2008
About eighteen months ago now, I realised I’m a materialist; I believe that everything in this world is matter, that there is no such thing as spirit, that what others might perceive as “spirit” can be explained materially. And for some thirteen, fourteen months, my Christian flatmate Håvard has challenged me on this. To him there [...]
Also posted in Ambiguity, Conflicting emotions, Discomfort, Evilness, Gratitude, Grief, Help!, Hodge-podge rambling, Misery, My microcosmos, Oh noes!, Opinions, Pain, Panic, Paranoia, Pessimism, Pride, Rant, Regret, Religiousity, Revelations, Scepticism, Why do I think anyone cares?, Wistfulness | Leave a comment

An elitist yet fascinating hypothesis

By terje | Published: January 6, 2008
“Medan [mannspanelet] drøftar feminiseringa av samfunnet over kaffikoppen, er ein type ung mann, som mannspanelet er kjemisk reinsa for, på full fart inn i sammfunnet. Han du ser med flagrande svart dress i Dagens Næringsliv, som raider på tysdagen, hedger på torsdagen, shorter på fredagen, snorter på laurdagen og speler poker på søndagen. Resten av [...]
Also posted in Norway, Politics, Quote of the day | Leave a comment

This does not bode well…

By terje | Published: December 24, 2007
I was in Molde yesterday, to have dinner with a buddy of mine from high school, and somehow at least two thirds of the four hours we spent together were spent talking about World of Warcraft, which said buddy, like so many others, had been pretty much addicted by the last couple of years. Personally, [...]
Also posted in Ambiguity, Computer games, Conflicting emotions, Discomfort, Forums, Hodge-podge rambling, Hope, Irony, My microcosmos, Oh noes!, Pessimism, Procrastination, Rant, Regret, Scepticism, Strategy/Plans, Stress, This Blog, Why do I think anyone cares?, Wistfulness | Leave a comment

Our hope

By terje | Published: December 15, 2007
“But we will not be around in 500 years to see how our predictions have fared; we can only hope that historians of that future time will be understanding of our inability to guess how things would turn out and why.” — Laurie Bauer in the conclusion of the discussion of the chances of a [...]
Also posted in English, History, Hope, Language, Quote of the day | Leave a comment

I’m concerned for my university

By terje | Published: December 14, 2007
I had my fifth and final exam for the term today, and unfortunately, I thought it was just like the four previous ones. You see, based on the curriculi and the lectures in the courses I’ve been taking this fall, I’ve been expecting to be satisfied with a straight Cs. Global English had a lot of [...]
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How to interpret a peculiar request

By terje | Published: December 7, 2007
“‘Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed …’ (from Shakespeare’s will) The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas where we would dive for pearls. My lover’s words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme to his, now echo, assonance; his [...]
Also posted in Art, Awe, Bliss, Death, Education, English, Goosebumps!, Grief, Language, Links, Love, Poetry, Quote of the day, Quotes, Wistfulness, Words, Yay! | Leave a comment