Friend and UX superstar Donna tagged me for the ‘8 things you don’t know about me’ meme. The rules are pretty straight forward:
- Link to your tagger and post these rules
- List EIGHT random facts about yourself
- Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names
- Let them know they’ve been tagged
So, here’s my list of things you may not know about me:
- I play drums and percussion, have played in bands all my life, and also does a lot of composing and production. I’ve made numerous CD’s (demos, mostly), and used to play every Tuesday at a local jazz club in Oslo with Nissa Nyberget, Ole Marius Melhuus and Totto “Heavy” Hansen. I specialize in the udu clay pot drum, and the congas.
- I’m a big movie buff. I grew up wanting to create movies, and me and my mate Ove Kenneth Nilsen ran everywhere with cameras and made all sorts of wierd stuff. He’s since grown up and is today part of the movie industry in Norway (a reputed editor), while I had a stint working for a production company during one of their films “In the claws of the night”. I also think Ove Kenneth sits on a few video snippets (me acting, writing and laughing too hard) we made together a few years back. Good times.
- I started Norways largest live roleplaying association back in 1989 with a few good friends, and have been active in the LARP scene up until about 8 years ago.
- I was politically active when I was younger, running around, talking publically and otherwise trying to make Oslo / Norway a more socially aware place. I’ve met lots of politicians and VIPs, mostly on the left side of the political gap. Yup, I like people and their interactions more than I like economic growth in a unilateral free economy.
- One of my good mates was killed by this piece of shit back in 1993. I was sitting watching the news with my then girlfriends parents when my friend’s face lit up the screen. A very surreal experience, and needless to say there’s lots of stuff with this I don’t really want to talk about. It seems people in Canberra – the black-metal capital of Australia – are intrigued by this whole thing and my connection to it. The short version is that I did different desktop publishing jobs for my friend’s record company (in fact, I did the inlet lyrics for the Burzum record, and yeah, I met the guy; he’s an complete idiot). Here’s some trivia about Øystein you won’t find anywhere else (because it was these things that brought our friendship together) ; he loved old electronica (Schultze, Tangerine Dream, Amoebios) and classical music. His religious beliefs weren’t quite what you read on WikiPedia. His political views were closer to mine than what most people think. Enough said.
- I starred as Sydney Carton in an semi-amateur production of Tale of Two Cities by Dickins, and have always acted on (and off) stage.
- A bit like Donna I also feel surprised that people like me. It stems from 4 years of primary school (grades 2 through 5) where I was bullied (my father is from the Czech Republic, which seemed to spark it off). The school sent me to psychology sessions (the problem must have been me since I was the one being bullied …) which did me no good, until the day I got a new psychologist. Know what she did? She asked me (as one of the first people to do so), “so, Alex, what do you reckon would solve the problems?” I told her that I want to change schools, such was arranged within a few weeks, and everything has been dandy ever since. Real communication is gold.
- I can look at (practically) any piece of armor or sword and tell you what century it is from, what country (and sometimes what part of the country) it was made in, the purpose of the shapes and joists involved, who used it, contemporary cost and mostly the metal and forge techniques used. Gee, what handy skills I’ve got.
And here’s who I’d like to know more about:
- Alia, because she’s the funniest person I know.
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Donna, because she’s so dandy!Already done, obviously. - Matthew, because he’s apparently similar to me, so prove me otherwise.
- Robert Barta, because he’s a no-bullshit fighter.
- Scott Berkin, because he’s smart.
- Murray Altheim, just because I suspect so many things.
- My daughters, so I could understand the mischievous stuff they get up to.
- Claudio Monteverdi, because he’s my hero.