Podcast 2

The word “Xmas”

 According to popular belief, the word "Xmas" was introduced as a secularized version of the word Christmas. This is wrong. The "X" part of the word comes from the Greek letter "chi" (Χχ), which in turn is the first letter of the Greek word “Χριστός” which translates into Christ. The “mas” part of the word derives from the Late Latin word: “missa”.

Portraits of Poets

Sylvia Plath

Born October 27,1932 in Boston, Massachusetts, Sylvia Plath was a poet, novelist and short story-writer. Although very creative, she was also a very troubled woman and suffered from depression throughout most of her life. In school she was the ideal student with prefect grades and she won numerous awards for her writing, but all the time fighting her inner demons. While studying at Smith College in 1953 she made her first suicide attempt, but failed and was taken in for psychiatric care for six months. In 1956 she met and married the poet Ted Hughes. After a complicated marriage, the couple divorced in 1962 after having two children together. On the 11^th of February, 1963, Plath sealed the door between the kitchen and her children’s bedroom with wet towels whereupon she put her head in the oven and turned on the gas. She was already dead when found.

Sylvia Plath’s poetry is very vibrant, full of disturbing images written on playful meter. They create an image of her own troubled mind. Most of her poems are deeply personal, and talking about ordinary, mundane things that turn terrifying and overwhelming to the author. She is seen as one of the most influent poetess of the 20^th century, and has become a symbol and an icon through her tragic suicide, not unlike the movie-worlds Marilyn Monroe who was made immortal through her death.

Daddy

You do not do, you do not do

Any more, black shoe

In which I have lived like a foot

For thirty years, poor and white,

Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.

You died before I had time--

Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,

Ghastly statue with one gray toe

Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic

Where it pours bean green over blue

In the waters off beautiful Nauset.

I used to pray to recover you.

Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town

Scraped flat by the roller

Of wars, wars, wars.

But the name of the town is common.

My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.

So I never could tell where you

Put your foot, your root,

I never could talk to you.

The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.

Ich, ich, ich, ich,

I could hardly speak.

I thought every German was you.

And the language obscene

An engine, an engine

Chuffing me off like a Jew.

A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.

I began to talk like a Jew.

I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna

Are not very pure or true.

With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck

And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack

I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,

With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.

And your neat mustache

And your Aryan eye, bright blue.

Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--

Not God but a swastika

So black no sky could squeak through.

Every woman adores a Fascist,

The boot in the face, the brute

Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,

In the picture I have of you,

A cleft in your chin instead of your foot

But no less a devil for that, no not

Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.

I was ten when they buried you.

At twenty I tried to die

And get back, back, back to you.

I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,

And they stuck me together with glue.

And then I knew what to do.

I made a model of you,

A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.

And I said I do, I do.

So daddy, I'm finally through.

The black telephone's off at the root,

The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two--

The vampire who said he was you

And drank my blood for a year,

Seven years, if you want to know.

Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart

And the villagers never liked you.

They are dancing and stamping on you.

They always knew it was you.

Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

“Daddy” was written on October 12 1962, shortly before her death. It’s talking about the complicated relationship Plath had with her German father who died when she was eleven and was published posthumously in the collection “Ariel”.

Mad Girl’s Love Song

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head

House lightshow

Tyko!

"Huh?!, I have nurtured a communist in my bosom!"

SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT CHRISTMAS

Norwegian scientists have hypothesized that Rudolph’s red nose is probably the result of a parasitic infection of his respiratory system.

According to data analyzed from Facebook posts, two weeks before Christmas is one of the two most popular times for couples to break up. However, Christmas Day is the least favorite day for breakups.

In Poland, spiders or spider webs are common Christmas trees decorations because according to legend, a spider wove a blanket for Baby Jesus. In fact, Polish people consider spiders to be symbols of goodness and prosperity at Christmas.

Christmas purchases account for 1/6 of all retail sales in the U.S.

The French gave the biggest Christmas present ever in 1886. It was the Statue of Liberty, and they gave it to the United States of America.

That "Xmas" stems from Greece. The Greek "X" is a symbol for Christ.

An estimated 1 of 3 people worldwide celebrate Christmas, including 2.1 Billion Christians. There are about 7,038,044,500 people in the world, so about 23,460,148 celebrate Christmas.

During the auspicious Christmas time many of the pet owners think their pet as human beings. It is noticed that almost 56 percent of Americans sing to their pets.

Scraps of Christmas can make problems for you many times. The Christmas scraps are responsible for 400,000 cases of disease and sickness after the Christmas time.

Father Christmas has two addresses, Edinburg and the North Pole. If someone writes a letter and wants to send it to "Toyland" or "Snow land", then that particular letter goes to Edinburg. But, if someone sends the letter to "The North Pole", then it has to go to the North Pole because there is a place called North Pole.

My personal advice for gifts for the Christmas of 2013

　
#10. A gift token. The perfect gift if you have no idea what to buy.
#9. An older model of the Iphone, they all look the same, no one will notice.
#8. A playstation 3. For the all the ignorant people who prefers this junk over xbox.
#7. The xbox. For all the people who chooses the correct console.
#6. An Ipod. If you can’t afford an Iphone or an Ipad. This will do just fine.
#5. A TV. So they can play on their new console.
#4. The newest model of the Iphone. Everyone loves that.
#3. A new computer. If your receiver is a gamer, they will worship you for this.
#2. A car. Who doesn’t want a car?
#1. Something handmade who comes directly from your heart. This gift fills everyone with love and joy.

Does sugar cause hyperactivity?

There's a common belief that sugar causes hyperactivity, especially in kids. But is this true?

If you didn't already know sugar, or sucrose, is a disaccharide commonly used as a sweetener in cooking. Sugar affects the body in a number of different ways, such as accelerating toot decay and contributing to obesity. Sugar is also accused for inducing a hyperactive behaviour if consumed in too large amounts, but unlike tooth decay and obesity there's no evidence to support this claim. There's actually a study that suggest that the phenomenon is purely a placebo.

In this study 35 boys between the ages five to seven, (The children were claimed by their mothers to be easily affected by sugar.) and their mothers were divided into two groups: One control group and one experimental group. The mothers in the control group where told their children had received a placebo: Aspartame. The mothers in the experimental group were told their children had been given a large dose of sugar. In reality all children had been given the placebo, aspartame. The test subjects were videotaped and the mothers were later questioned about their experience of their children’s behaviour. The mothers in the experimental group rated their children as significantly more active than they usually were.

This study implies that there's no causation between sugar consumption and hyperactivity, however, further studies need to be conducted in order for a conclusion to be drawn.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7963081?dopt=Abstract

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose

Bulgur salad

So this week I decided to make a bulgur salad! I've never really liked bulgur very much, but this salad made me completely change my mind! It's a very easy salad to make, it doesn't take much time to do and the only thing you need to cook is the bulgur. And another great thing about this salad is that you can put your favorite vegetables in it. And even if there's a vegetable you don't really like you can't really taste it if it’s in the salad, well that's at least what I think! For example, I don't like peas, but I don't feel the taste of them when they're in the salad. This salad is served with a homemade mustard dressing.

This recipe makes a big salad (about 6-8 servings), so you can eat lovely leftovers the next day.

I couldn't find a photo of this recipe's bulgur salad,
but here's one very similar bulgur salad.
All that's different is that I had baby spinach and tofu in it,
but no lettuce or broccoli.
As you hopefully can tell- you can vary the recipes a lot!

This is what you will need:
3dl (1.2 cup) uncooked bulgur (if you really dislike bulgur, use pasta and make it a pasta salad instead)
1 container with corn
3-4 lettuce leaves
1 bell pepper
1/2 container olives
Around 10 cocktail tomatoes
1/2 cucumber
1 can kidney beans
6-8 sun dried tomatoes
2 1/2dl (1 cup) peas
2 1/2 (1 cup) cup broccoli (cooked) 1 red onion 

For the mustard dressing:
3/4dl (0.3 cup)oil (perhaps olive oil)
1/4dl vinegar
2 tbsp mustard
1 tbsp sugar
A pinch salt and pepper if you want

Alrighty then, let’s get started! Cook the bulgur recording to the instructions on the back of the package. Meanwhile, you can wash the cocktail tomatoes and cut them in halves. Wash and rinse the cucumber and dice it. Put the cocktail tomatoes and the diced cucumber into a big bowl.
Depending on how fast you work, the bulgur might be done by now.Take the bulgur off the heat and steer in it with a ladle to help it cool down.
Now take the sundried tomatoes and cut them into a size of your choice and put them in the bowl. Mince the red onion, chop the bell pepper, roughly chop the lettuce and put it in the bowl together with the peas, the corn, the olives and the beans (I like to rinse them in a colander first). Add the bulgur to the bowl and mix it with the other ingredients. Put the bowl with your salad in your refrigerator and wait for it to cool down.
While you wait for your salad to cool down, it’s time to make the dressing! Put the mustard, the oil and the vinegar in a small bowl and stir with a spoon. Add the water and the sugar to the mix and mix thoroughly. Taste and see if you want to add some salt and pepper, I usually don’t add salt and pepper but you might want to.

When the salad is cool it’s just to serve with some dressing. Enjoy!

Planescape: Torment Review

Planescape: Torment is a CRPG developed by Black Isle Studios and is known as the best RPG game they've created. This game takes place in the multivese of Planescape and uses a modified version of the Infinity Engine.

The story of Planescape starts with you waking up inside a mortuary without knowing who you are or why you're there. Known only as The Nameless One, you'll have to explore this strange world you've woken up in and find out many interesting things on the way. As you unravel new things you'll eventually find what main adventure is all about.

Planescape has quite bad game play, with strange character collision and  it can take a while to target enemies.

The thing that makes this game shine is it's dialogue and the way you can affect things in the world of Planescape with each decision you make.

If you're not a fan of reading, this game is not for you, since there is not much voice acting and over 50% of the game time will probably be spent just talking to NPCs. With each character being unique and every NPCs having something interesting to say, talking and making different decisions what to say is much more enjoyable than the combat itself. The combat does not necessarily have to be in the way, since is it acceptable if you've gotten some bugs patched and in many cases you can even talk your way out of battle, depending on your in game intelligence and the decisions you've made.

The graphics of this game are pretty good for its time, but because it's made for older versions of Windows, the HD patch and some bug patches are required for playing on a modern PC, other than that there's not really any problems with the game.

As it's made in the Infinity Engine, Baldur's gate fans would probably like this game, but any RPG fan in general should check this game out.

Biblical jokes

How does Moses make his coffee? Hebrews it

And God said come forth and win eternal life! Moses came fifth and won a toaster

And God said onto Abraham, and Abraham said: What?

And God said: Let there be light, and there was light, and God said "Man I’m good"

Did Eve have a date with Adam? No, just an apple

THE WHOLE COUNTY IS COVERED BY SNOW

It have been snowing a lot in the county the last day. The whole county is now completely covered in snow.

Mostly of the snow have been coming in the Swedish mountains, according to SMHI.
Hemavan have measured it up to 61 centimeters of new snow the last 24 hours.
The station in Gunnarn has measured it up to five centimeters and the station in Kasa has measured it up to three centimeters.

More snow is suspected during the Monday, but the white happiness might not be here for long. Several plus degrees are suspected to come at Tuesday.

Podcast

This week's bodypart

 So this week's bodypart is the ear.

Since we're now talking about horses ears (if it wasn't obvious) I thought that I would tell you some things about the their ears. To begin with, they have 16 muscles in each ear which gives them the privilege to be able to rotate them 180 degrees. This leaves the horse with excellent sound perception an they are great at localising where specific sounds comes from. 

A horse cannot separate specific words but can often learn to understand what you mean just by listening to the tone of your voice and you could also learn them to separate some different commands, just like you can do with a dog.

The horses hear much better then humans, we for example can perceive a frequency of about 20 000 hertz whilst horses perceive about 25 000 hertz. This quality is a remnant from the time the horses lived in the wild and constantly had to be on watch after predators. This means that horses are easily startled by sudden sounds. But that's just something you'll have to live with when you are around horses.

oh, my Rosenwinkels Thalia

Sunshine

Resi

Wendy

Isor

Golden Gade

Izabella

Lollo

LOCAL VILLAGER WINNING IN BINGOLOTTO

Christer Johansson from Ivarsboda, Sävar, won a car in last Sundays Bingolotto.
“It feels very good” he replies to VK after his win.
The winner from Ivarsboda already had a Volvo 850 in his ownership.
And with his win in the Sundays round of Bingolotto, he now also has a Volkswagen Passat Alltracker, worth 376 000 SEK.
“I am not sure if I am going to sell it or keep it, I guess I will have to figure it out”. Says Christer Johansson.
Christer Johansson have already played Bingolotto for a long time, since the era of “Loket”.
He was prepared to win around 10 000 SEK, but he went home with a brand new car.
“This was a great bonus” He says.

American pancakes

This is a recipe on American pancakes that I made.


American pancakes has always been one of my favorite foods. Or well, since the first time I tasted it a few years ago. They take me back to the USA for a short moment, which is just one of the reasons why I love them. They are also absolutely delicious, so what’s not to love about them?
 These pancakes were so fun to make. At first they didn't turn out very well, but then I added some more ingredients and they tasted amazing! They are really easy to make and taste the best when you serve them with maple syrup (may be warm), fresh fruit or berries. 
 
This recipe makes around 14-16 pancakes (depending on what size you make them, an American pancake should be about third the size of a Swedish pancake).
 
You will need:
1.5 cup (3 1/2 dl) flour
1 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1.25 cups (3 dl) milk
2 tbsp melted margarine
Some extra margarine, for the skillet
 
Okay, let's get started! Put all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, vanilla extract) in a big bowl and whisk them. Put all the wet ingredients (melted margarine and milk) and steer them in a separate bowl. Now that you have two different bowls you will pour the margarine and milk mix into the bowl with the dry ingredients.
Now it's time to mix all the ingredients together. Whisk until you can't see any clumps, but be careful because you don't want to stir the batter too much. From my own experiences I can tell you that if you don’t stir it too much, the pancakes will get a much nicer consistence and even taste better!
When the batter is done it's time to cook the pancakes. Put a knob of margarine in the frying pan and wait for it to melt. When it’s melted it’s just to put some of the batter in the frying pan (if your frying pan is big enough you can actually cook two pancakes at the same time). When the top of the pancake starts to bubble, turn it over and cook both sides until the pancake is golden brown on both sides.

When all your pancakes are done, serve them immediately with some maple syrup, fruit, berries, chocolate sauce or whatever you like on pancakes, enjoy!