Author Archives: scrivnomancer

Moving to Norway -OR- The Zombie Plague: and the art of making friends

13 Monday Jul 2009

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Do we have a signal?…

Testing…

Testing…

OK, lovelings, looks like we’re back up and running and ready to bloggity-blog-blog.

…I still think “blog”-”to blog”-”blogging” as a verb sounds explicit, like the act of having sex in a swamp (Swamp-Thing victoriously carried his true love into the steaming sunset and they blogged happily ever after.).

Where were we?

Long story short, I’m in Oslo, Norway. I made a sudden decision to work for Funcom, a video game company, and more sudden move to Oslo to write for their Age of Conan computer game.

I’ve been here nearly a week.

Let’s recap…

Goodbyes

I made visits with several fine folk in the weeks before coming to Oslo, and finished it up with a goodbye party on July 3rd. It was a good turnout. Really good. I have the fortune of knowing a lot of fine people who fill in the nooks and crannies and the pantheons and the plots of my life. You all weave into a tapestry that is very precious—more so than I might regularly iterate—every stitch of you. If nothing else, 4,000 miles puts that into perspective. Growing up, I was a very shy child, with only a few close friends. I never would have thought I’d have such a wealth of comrades, chums, and partners in crime as I do now.

The Story So Far…

The last week is a blur. Let’s go over some of the finer points as they come to mind:

The plane ride be long. Carrying a desktop computer as carry-on should be avoided. I didn’t get much sleep the night before the flight and no sleep on the day of the flight. I arrived in Sweden and then in Norway in a state of delirium.

I got off the plane.

On to a train.

And straight to my place of work.

Then they showed me my apartment and I slept for some 16 hours.

The first week at work was getting acclimated, to the building, company, and game. One of my first assignments was to download my free account to Conan and play for several hours.

I’ll have to give a photo tour of the place in a later post, but one place of note is the lounge on the top floor. The nameplate on the room says, “Yggdrasil”. In the lounge is a fridge and the fanciest coffee machine I’ve ever seen. It’s the HAL of coffee machines…in fact, I won’t be surprised when it turns and kills us all. But the coffee is delicious!

“Cappuccino…Dave?”
The top-floor lounge goes out onto the roof. This brings us to an important ritual at Funcom…

Free Beer Friday

On Friday nights, the lounge fridge is stocked with free beer for the employees. It’s a good time to socialize. I found myself on the roof having several interesting discussions.

A British guy talked about walking barefoot through the jungles of Mexico, tripping on acid.

A Norwegian guy, when talking about aggressive or violent countries, shrugged and said (referring to the Viking age), “We got it out of our system.”

Talk of eating intelligent marine life…

Odds n’ Ends

The plastic rings don’t detach from the caps on plastic Coke bottles out here…and it’s driving me mad!!!

“You Americans and cheese!” was said to me upon one person looking at my lunch tray.

If one actually looks at their food receipts, in Oslo, one risks depression.

Oslo Zombie-Walk 2009

When, barely recovered from jetlag, you’re asked to don some gory apparel and walk with an undead hoard through a strange city…it is wise to say yes.

Yes, I will move to Norway in a few weeks.

Yes, I will join Oslo’s second annual Zombie Walk.

Yes leads to interesting places.

It was serendipitous for this event to fall on my first Saturday in Oslo and I thought it would be a great introduction to the city center.

I was the last one from work to leave…leaving me half lost, looking for the train station, alone, with a bloody face. It was an interesting trip back.

Some zombie images (lots of cameras out there…so if someone stumbles upon any other Oslo Zombie Walk 2009 photos…let me know)…

Phone Home (or at least Skype)

There’s more to say, but I must away. More details to come as I record my misadventures abroad. For those who want to keep in contact with me, you can check on my blog at:

-My Blogspot Blog
-Livejournal Blog
-My Myspace Page

You can find me on Facebook.

Or my Twitter page.

Goodnight.

Send Joshua Off to Norway!

26 Friday Jun 2009

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I’m off to Norway! Going to be writing for a video game company in a far off place for a year. So please, please, please come send me off in style and visit. Maybe bring a snack. Maybe bring a libation. But at the very least, bring your smiling selves. We will be up late…so visit anytime.




Start Time:
Friday, July 3, 2009 at 7:00pm
End Time:
Saturday, July 4, 2009 at 4:00am
Location:
THE DOETSCH MANOR
Street:
3911 Hale Lane
City/Town:
Island Lake, IL

Phone:
224-627-6836
Email:
nevermore_66@hotmail.com
 
 

Mwahahahahahaha!

18 Wednesday Mar 2009

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A several weeks ticked by…just like that.

Over a month in fact.

They’ve been light laughter and heavy laughter weeks. A little life and a little death. A coin flips…but it all balances out in the end. I promise.

DEATH:

My friend, Ken’s grandmother died several weeks ago. Ken is my oldest friend that I still see on a regular basis (and having someone around that knew you in 3rd grade sometimes helps to keep certain things in perspective) and I knew his grandmother.

I could conjure up any number of memories of her, but the one that surfaces quickest, for no reason that I’m able to discern, is sitting in her living room, in the very same retirement home that my brother Nick and I had performed a magic show for the residents (where we horribly, horribly botched the Floating Mummy Trick), with Ken and her, back in high school, just as Fall was starting to deepen, the candies in the bowl on the coffee table were already taking on Halloweenish shapes, the Thriller video played in the background on a TV, and all seemed very, very right with the world…


 

I went to the wake and the funeral. Among other things, she was buried with a Cubs cap. Even in her final letter to her family, she still had not figured out what she had done wrong to raise so many Sox fans.

Outside it was cold and bright. The graveyard was small.

I, not having the normal schedule and responsibilities of an upstanding person my age, was in the unique position to spend the majority of three days with Ken to facilitate the grieving process. Our chosen method: nostalgic video games. Ken purchased a disc containing some 30+ old Sega games from the late 80s early 90s and we played and played.

Remember 16-Bit pixels?

Oh you kids with your advanced polygons, blackberry phones, and flying cars!

It’s amazing just how many memories are locked in sensory stimulus…even very specific beeps, squawks, menus, and digital music.

Games we played when those who are gone were still around.

We supplemented the games with alcohol, more friends, cookies, smoke breaks, laughs, and forming a new band on Guitar Hero: World Tour.

LIFE:

The next week I went to help celebrate a new life—Caitlyn Jade Glass, the daughter of my good friends, Amy and Jeramie, was getting baptized. This also gave me the opportunity to visit little Caitlyn’s older sister, my Goddaughter, Reese.

Reese was barely past infancy the last I saw of her…and now she is almost three. I had worries that she wouldn’t remember me…or what if we didn’t get along?

These doubts vanished when we shared several conspiratorial smiles throughout the mass.

I discovered Reese is very talkative. She gave me an entire symposium on here theories on the phenomenon of princessdom (“A princess just gots to!”).

In talking with Amy, I also discovered that Reese has taken to performing mischievous acts (like snatching various objects and declaring them hers) finishing off with a super-villain laugh. Not just a “ha-ha”…but a full blown, genuine super-villain-mad-scientist laugh.

“Mwahahaha!”

I’m very proud. A lot goes into a good mad scientist laugh—cackle and pitch and cadence. Technique is everything. Such a good start and so many years ahead to help Reese perfect that maniacal laughter.

I’ve half a mind to build a Doomsday Device for her third birthday.

I also, a while back, promised Reese a children’s book—something I can’t solve by driving out to Barnes & Noble…as I promised to write it.

I finished my evening with Reese with a very competitive game of face-making. I’m no slouch. I summon up every ounce of humility when I say I’m freaking brilliant at making faces. But Reese kept right up with me. I’m impressed. Even overwhelmed.

What can I say? She had me at, “Mwahahahaha!”