Advanced maths

Fifteen 12-year-old boys finish 8 pizzas in approx 6 mins 34 secs. Each pizza is divided in 12 slices.

a) how many slices per boy per second?

b) how much football cake can they possibly eat after that?

Life wouldn't be half as much fun without!

It's half time. Liverpool's 2-0 down. Hubby's away, but Jakob (10) and I have been 'watching' the game**). We're really grumpy... Jakob half blames one of his brothers for the defeat that seems to be unavoidable - after all, didn't the brother just laugh? Unrelatedly, possibly, but still - laugh, at this hour?!! 

"Why did I become a Liverpool fan?!!!" Jakob exclaims - in real agony!

As if it wasn't enough, Ronnie just played the final of Shanghai Masters and lost. Just. It's that kind of day.

I yell at the kids for making too much noise (they're not, not really) and decide to start changing the linen. Only I can't, can I, I have to hit the refresh button every two minutes (or more) to see if there could be hope, if a text won't just ...

55 minutes - it's a goal! Torres! That wonderful Spaniard... Jakob and I look at eachother and hold our breaths. More breath-holding as City (today's enemy!) has one player sent off at 67 minutes. 73 minutes - another goal! Torres again!! I have to go down and get towels for the kids in the bath, but my mood is better and I don't tell them off for yelling (they are!)...

Skrtel (our man) has to be carried off the pitch at 86 minutes and we're down to 10 man as well. 6 minutes added time - and then Kuyt!! WE WIN!

"That's why I'm a Liverpool fan!!!" Jakob cries with glee, as we embrace eachother. 

How dull must life be if you don't like football?

**)We haven't got the right TV channels for it, so 'watching' means following the live text on bbc or the Guardian or some such place!

The Match

I suppose I must mention The Match.

It was a bright and sunny - and calm! - morning, and I had San Francisco at my feet. So what do I do? I walk a few blocks down from where we're staying, to the Irish the Kezar pub, to watch the Champions league final on television. Of course I do...

The pub could probably house at least a 100 people, and there were at least 200 there. Felt like more... A handful of Italians (and the referee!) and then all Brits and Irish. And 1 Norwegian. What can I say? I was home. So we played a great first half , a more untidy second half, and we lost. The Italians in the pub were ecstatic at the end, but weren't killed, so I guess you could say there was a friendly atmosphere...
Some scouser bought me a beer, must have noticed how the 50º C (122º F) in the room also got to me. As well as the singing and shouting. Yes, I sang and shouted, songs I hadn't known I knew -- and of course, our anthem. And I will get a tattoo like that one. Hubby says I can, if he can have one too. Our families will probably disallow us, but...


When I left the pub two Americans walked out just before me. "That was fun!" one said, as if he'd been to the circus. I guess he just had...


But we'll rise again, of course, both at home and in Europe. You'll never walk alone!

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!

Liverpool's in the finals!



This was the last time we beat Chelski in the semi finals (2005) but the singing is just as magnificent as it was today, "the special one's" sour expression is priceless..

This is just not on!

I don't know if anyone else cares, but really - here I am, peacefully, browsing Amazon. I stop by (natural choice) the world's greatest footballer, and they team him up with that?!!

It really is unheard of. "Perfect partners"? Pah. Glad I got that off my chest...

- By the way, don't mention this to my hubby. His birthday's coming up... And no, he doesn't read my blog :)

Football in our hearts

First, there was the football tournament. With Filip in one team, Mathias and Thomas in one (they're in different classes) and Jakob in one. Meaning 12 games altogether, the ones who weren't playing managed to see most of the games -- and Anna, luckily, had a birthday party to go to in the middle of it all. There were wins, losses, Mathias scored, Thomas saved, and a good time was genereally had by all! The cups they all received at the end also helped, of course!

Then there was football on television in the night. Norway was playing Bosnia home. A few of their "fans" spent the first 40 minutes of what should have been the start of the game throwing bengal lights on the pitch, their own goalkeeper, setting fire to the billboards... Well, eventually the game started, we still lost (1-2). Not as bad as Greece though, who were slaughtered 1-4 by Turkey. A sad night indeed.On the bright side, Filip has made a little football story: Here's Liverpool FC vs. France (well, it could happen...). Reina shoots from the goal, Kuyt heads it on... ... to Gerrard, who kicks it to Riise, heading it on to ...
... Pennant, kicking it on to Gonzales, who does an amazing trick shot on to ...

... Crouch, who kicks it fiercely into - the crossbar...

No worries, though, they (= LFC!) still won 1-0, according to Filip. And yes, the names and the story were entirely his, as are the drawings.

Saturday tale...

I had two boys weeping, no - sobbing, wailing - this afternoon. Liverpool played an excellent game for 90 minutes (= full time), then the unmentionable team scored - 1 minute into injury time. And won. As is their wont. The ba**ds... Luckily, all of our membership cards, diplomas and stuff that arrived in the mail last week comforted the kids slowly, but surely.

Possibly, the huge bar of chocolate entered into the equation as well...

Anna hadn't been watching the game at all - she hasn't got any interest in football, and played happily around by herself for the 90+ minutes. The other two boys didn't cry - they tackled the loss by suggesting a number of quite interesting things we could do to the players of the other team and to the referee, not least.

And after an hour or so, all 4 of them had found the solution to LFC's problem - they'll all play for Liverpool when they grow up! My boys ;)

Yaaaay!!

Oh, I love football! And I love it even more when Liverpool wins!! And I love it to bits when they beat unbeatable Barca!!! We're on our way... How convenient then, that our new membership cards from LFC fan club arrived earlier today!

***

On a different note, I've taken on a couple of extra translation jobs and haven't had time for anything but lately. Stayed up till 2:30 last night and it really wasn't as much fun as I thought it might be... I'll hand in the first one tomorrow (thanks to proofreading Merujo!) and the next one isn't due till mid March, so I might pop by again.

In the meantime, I may also be found over at Facebook. I'm sure I'm supposed to be way too old for this, but I think "poking" my friends and tagging them in photos from 1980-something is absolutely hilarious :D

***

It's winter holidays over here, and the kids are home. Today we've played kiddie pool, cards, yatzy in between my "working" attempts...

***

Today was Thomas' turn to go to the dentist. He's been talking about it for the past two weeks - making sure we didn't forget, he's been so happy! Whereas Anna cried herself to sleep the other night because it wasn't her turn... Everything turned out fine - no cavities - and Thomas will have to wait a year or more for a joyous return...

***

Oh, and I believe I've developed a rather serious case of Smileyaticus Sentencis Vulgaris - the state of not being able to finish two sentences without at least one Smiley on board... ;)

All is well with the world - and I know where it is!

The weekend has brought:

Snow. Which makes the kids happy and which makes me hope maybe global warming hasn't gone as far as they say. Yet.

Liverpool FC beat "Chelski"! 2-0, no less. And there was a lot of screaming around the place... Jakob had gone to watch the match at a friend's place (we haven't got the channel that shows English football live), and the rest of us were listening on the radio. Bliss...

Ronnie O'Sullivan is playing really well! The final still isn't finished while I'm typing this, but he's 8-3 up, and first to 10 wins it. The way he's playing I feel pretty confident he'll win the Masters!

*** And about knowing the whereabouts of the world -

I stayed up till 01 some nights ago (yes, it's sort of silly, as I'm up at 06 and really need 7 hours of sleep...) after discovering this geography quiz link... I hadn't even heard of Prince Edward Island before (my apologies to anyone living there..), now I can do all of Canada blindfold... Also, it turned out I'm pretty good at Africa, and amazingly accurate at placing Central American countries, but that my knowledge of US states had decreased substantially since my heydays..

- Back in this world, Ronnie's on his way to 9-3... So, how was your weekend?

Several reasons to be happy - despite the torrential rain

Liverpool FC won last night's game against PSV Eindhoven, and is through to the final 16. (Porto also won their game, as I'm sure DevilMood has noticed...) And there is more - Chelski lost. Hah... And Man United lost! To Celtic!! And what does Celtic and Liverpool have in common? Actually, quite a lot - but also the "anthem" You'll never walk alone.

... Which - not incidentally - is also the ringtone of this, hubby's new phone!
That's the Kop singing on his phone as well... We're not pretend fans! ;)

Put pen to pencil! As someone once said...

(Click on any image to enlarge)
Jakob describes Greece - Portugal, 3-1 (and 83 minutes played). As you can see, in detail, Nikopolidis (oh yes, he's big in our house, they're always fighting to be Nikopolidis if they're goalkeeping!) is very pleased about the save whereas the hitherto unnamed Portuguese is not...
Filip is only slightly influenced by his oldest brother, as you can see... But it's a different game - Vålerenga (Norwegian premier league) plays England (sic!) and even though Paul Harrison saves, the Vålerenga player doesn't seem too disappointed...
Another rip-off - but in his own style! - Mathias' football match. And this one, Liverpool's Peter Crouch, does score. Against whom, he didn't say. (Mathias, that is, not Crouchie...)
Thomas is very eager to play football, not quite so eager to draw it. But here's himself, and a four-legged statue on a colourful carpet, and lots of writing! (And how did you guess his dad's a big Toto fan...?)

The drawings were all addressed to me, which does something to a mother's heart...

Anna was enjoying our babysitter's attention - a 16-year-old friend - to the full last night, and didn't make any drawings..

- The babysitting was due to PTA meeting in all first grades last night. We've got kids in 2 classes, so naturally there were 2 of us going!

The meetings apart, I was most fascinated by the "class rules". They go "we shall be nice to eachother", "we shall not make fun of others" etc. - stuff you might guess. But no. 3 is my definite favourite:

"we shall not bite or strangle eachother"

Wonder if the class or the teacher came up with that one?

Greece is out - and I'm not talking world cup (for once)

Just in case you hadn't heard -
Greece isn't allowed in on any international footballing from this moment on. (Actually from a few days back.)

If you want to know why and how and who it'll affect, you can read EllasDevil's post on this.

I'm just feeling bad about it even given all the reasons. I screamed like a madman (well, mad woman) when Greece because European champions two years ago, and I'm proud there's a Norwegian who's successfully trained Olympiakos to another league triumph. I'm even proud - still - about the Norwegians that used to play in Greece - Mykland for Panathinaikos and Sundby for Iraklis Saloniki, since you ask ;) - even if it's been a while.


But at least I hope they won't be coming to collect my kids' kits... Here (half) seen in Chania, Crete, last summer, wearing their kits with pride (Thomas obviously wearing it with pride somewhere else, as he's not in the picture...), Anna in a sort of Greece-coloured cheerleading costume. Oh well, anything looks good on her...

Any opportunity for a connection, right?

Yesterday

Yesterday my hubby and the kids drove off to the cabin, to stay for three weeks. I'll be working another fortnight. So - left to my own (de)vices, what did I do?

First, my contribution to society, donating a little blood. (Don't look if you don't like that kind of thing...) No, reallly, I think everyone who can ought to do it, I've been doing it since I was a student.

Then I met with my childhood friend M who works in the same building as the above hospital unit, and we sat out on a street cafe. The sun was baking, we had so-so iced coffees and became so dizzy in the heat I didn't manage or even remember to take any photos...

In the evening I went to football practice. Cycling to and fro, as the rest of the family - as is fair - had taken the car.


Made it home just in time for the semi final were Germany was luckily beaten, well-deserved by the Italians! (Notice the great, new bike, by the way...)

And if you think I'm not really blogging at this hour - sadly, I am... But now, off to work!

England lost - Robbie won!

After a long busride we arrived at the magnificent stadium of Nya Ullevi, Gothenburg. Where we waited. And waited. And waited...
In the midst of all our waiting, England failed to succeed in the World Cup (wipe that smirk off your faces, Børge and DevilMood!), and depressed us to no little extent.
We were also wondering what the effect might be on Robbie, knowing how mad he is about football. The support band came on. They're probably really, really famous, but I'd never heard of them - The Basement Jaxx (ok, hit me now). They were, at best, very energetic. And obviously prepared to make the best out of supporting Mr. Robbie Williams. But really - supporting is very unrewarding. They did earn 4 huge rounds of applause, every time because they announced they were leaving...

Eventually they left. So we waited some more. After sitting down in the bus 4 hours, and then standing up in the stadium for another 4 hours, I was honestly beginning to wonder if it was all worth it?
Then Robbie came on. All doubts aside...

Robbie is amazing. Really - I mean, I like a lot of his songs, but he could probably be singing Baa Baa Black Sheep and leave the audience feeling the same way. He may be a lot of other things, but he's definitely a born entertainer! After a couple of songs, where I felt he wasn't really there, he came clean - asked us if we could feel his pain after England's exit. Of course we could... And by the comfort of 57,245 in the audience (a sell-out, as it was the following night. The only others to sell out two nights in a row were Springsteen, Sting and Stones. And as Robbie said - "I'm the only one under a hundred"... Admittedly, U2 never tried having more than one show, moving on to Stockholm for the next.) Robbie gave us all he had. Which is A LOT. And in case anybody wonders - there were a lot of guys there too. I didn't even see a lot of fourteen year old girls, and there were about 40 per cent guys, my guess would be. A lot of couples, a lot of Really Old People (like me, 37 - or Robbie, 32) - quite a few in their 40's and 50's, quite a few of any age, actually.

At one point I realised that Denmark had shipped all its tallest men to Sweden, and they were all standing in front of me with their tiny girlfriends. But suddenly they all vacated the area (we were at a fence, about 50 metres / 160 feet from the stage) and we were left in clear view of Robbie. (The close-up is from one of the papers, the others are mine..) And, after another few songs, his "bestest friend in the whole, wide world", Jonathan Wilkes. Now - except for the local newspaper, all Swedish papers gave the show their highest marks. But none of them had much good to say about Jonny's appearance. We quite enjoyed it, though, their having a kind of football shoot-out competition in the midst of it all... Also, their performance of "their" song, Me and my shadow, wasn't that great, but here's a sample anyway:

Robbie claimed he didn't say it on every concert. Then he stated we were the best audience on the tour so far. Whether it was true or not, it didn't particularly make for a worse atmosphere... He also claimed that "you're all f*ing gorgeous! Even the guys are better looking than me!! Thank God I can sing..."

He obviously did more encores than he'd planned to, so we must have made him feel better after England's loss... The whole thing ended in fireworks and whatnot, and everyone were extatic. Yes, my hubby had also screamed his voice hoarse, as had I...

Arriving at our house, Sunday morning around 5 AM (...) we found this note on the door: Jakob had taped it to the front door to make sure we saw. And even though it broke our hearts to see two of our Liverpool heros had missed, at least it was the Chelsea player whose name was spelled incorrectly.

Oh yes, the kids had been fine with the babysitters all along, and I did get to sleep in...

Robbie is just like football (soccer)

Americans don't get either...

I'm talking about Robbie Williams, of course.

Why? Well - we'll be going to see him tomorrow! My hubby and I. We'll hop on a coach for that exact purpose, pine through about 4 or 5 hours, hop off in Gothenburg (actually Göteborg, Sweden).

All of this means we'll miss out on England - Portugal! But I'm sure Robbie'll give it a mention on stage..

Now, try google for images of him, and you'll see his no Angel (although that's one of his biggest hits) - but actually, our kids were the ones who used to love Robbie. We've videotaped the then one-year old quads dancing to a Robbie show on tv - and recorded their singing selfmade versions of his lyrics at the age of three...

They're not really into him anymore, but hubby and I are still with him, and can't wait to see him live! He's been voted on many an occasion 'best live performance' - I'm sure we'll be content... Oh, and I might give it a mention on my blog, yes...

Then another few hours on the coach, almost an hour's drive in our car, home sometime early Sunday morning. Please, let the kids sleep in, someone...

Is not that strange?

The world has so much to offer - yet this is where I'd like to go..

Ever since I was a kid I've loved the reds. I married another fan (ok, that wasn't why I wooed him for months until he caved, but still..). Now we're raising a bunch of the same.

But how is it - a bunch of overpaid footballers I've never even seen plays such an important role in our, relatively normal, life?

I won't go into details about the nausea I felt when Michael Owen signed for Newcastle... But it was physical. No dessert or extra playtime for the kids that day. Only grunts of 'goodnight' and 'get lost'..

I would like to think it's a good thing I can get so involved in things. But making people believe that screaming about goals, or pots (in snooker), without even considering this might wake the kids, has so far proved quite strenuous... Am I the only one?