Helene

Merry Christmas everybody!

For many people Christmas is today - 25th of December, but Norwegians celebrate this day on 24th. The day usually starts with cartoons on TV in the morning with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. The cartoons set the mood for the day to come, but the cartoons and Mickey Mouse have change since I was a kid. That set in motion a new tradition where I purchase one cartoon that I watch in the morning/day. This year I purchased “The Sword in the stone” which gave me that christmas feeling only old disney classics can give. Last year I bought “Cars” and that didn’t work at all. I have decided to start purchasing old disney classics (and hopefully not all of them will have been remade). From next year I will (mostly) stay on the old disney classics and purchase the first Disney classic that was produced, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (if I can find it somewhere available for purchase).

A list of Disney Classics and when they were released.

NRK shows “Tre nøtter til Askepott” and “Reisen til Julestjernen” which have been shown since I was a kid.

About 80% of the norwegian population is part of the state church, but I presume that there are many non-practicing christians here. There are many that only goes to church on Christmas. Me and Martin didn’t go to church, but we visited his dads grave.

The Christmas eve is kicked off by dinner, usually around five pm, with Sølvguttene in the background. This year we celebrated christmas at Irene, Martin’s sister. In the evening we opened presents.

And I got some very nice gifts this year. Martin gave me an ipod nano (16 GB) which I have really been wanting. I spent a lot of the evening just looking at it ;-D. I got an hair dryer, three fleece blanket (so I’ll stay warm this winter), day and night cream, soaps, candles and a lot of other nice things.

Picture taken at Tanum Church on Christmas eve.

The norwegian library central is ready to lend ebooks, the only problem is that there is no books to lend. The Norwegian publishers have no ebooks to deliver, even though all books are delivered as digital books when they go out for printing.

According to an article in aftenposten, the Norwegian publishers did try to publish ebooks in the 90’s and it failed miserably. I lived in the nineties and I can’t remember any such thing, though I’m very curious if anybody else remembers something about it. Most likely they were a bit too early out, chickened out without accepting the economical implications the long term investment it would be.

The library central is using a system named DiViLib (Digital virtual library) to lend ebooks,audio books, films and music over the web. This system is already in use at Stockholms Stadsbibliotek (state library) and last year 23 400 ebooks were lend out. Not a big number, but still acceptable when every ebook has a lending time of 2 - 4 weeks.

Now things are about to change. The national library and the publishers union has signed an agreement to store norwegian books digitally. During the first three years it will be voluntary for the publishers to deliver digital editions of books, and the digital books will only be available for search on the library premises to begin with. This initiative is primarily for researchers, and not for everyday people.

It’s a start at least.

On wednesday me and Tatjana went to Henie Onstad Art Center to see their exhibition REALITY EFFECTS: when reality is put to work. First there were something about blondes, adressing blond myths, porn and jokes, with pictures of celebrities like Britney Spears, some hip hop girl etc. I like celebrity gossip like any non-Perez Hilton, but it wasn’t enough to stay more than 10 minutes there.

Next there were a lot of television sets showing documentaries with a lot of people talking. Reaction: BORING! Why do I want to listen to a lot of people talking about… general bullshit. I sat down to listen to one episode featuring two indian woman, and during four minutes she mentioned her beauty shop and it’s adress at least four times.

And this is art, folks !

I don’t get it.

We spent most time looking in Henie Onstads private art collection. The picture on the right was one of the highlights. The had paintings of Picasso and Matisse there. Funny thing: There were no guards there.

The Picasso paintings (woman sitting in a chair) were for me not of interest. I think I should get art people to explain to me the greatness of these painters, because I just don’t get it. Do you?

The best paintings for me was of pavements. I don’t remember who the artist was except that he was norwegian, but there were three paintings. One of cobble pavement, one of larger rock and a manhole cover and one of a beach. They were so realistic and beautifully done. I actually knocked on one of the paintings just to check if it actually was a painting or if the artist had took pavement from a road somewhere. It was a painting.

Now, I have probably sounded quite negative in my view of the exhibition, but it’s a nice way of spending an evening. Henie Onstad is a beautiful art center surrounded in beautiful settings. The sun sets around 7/8 pm, so we didn’t get the chance to take a walk around there, but I have been there many times and it’s astounding nature there.

Afterwards, me and Tatjana went to B?lgen & Moi, chatted and drinked coffee and wine. It was a very nice evening.

Me and Tatjana is holding hands... Very romantic, your thinking? Well, it was just her ensuring that if I threw her out into the ocean, I would follow..

As most people I like to roam the web for interesting sites, people, knowledge, forums etc. One of my favorites are Eirik Newth (in norwegian). He’s an author, blogger, astrophysicist and one of the prominent intellectual persons in Norway.

He is one of the persons that have a genuine interests for every scientific subject there is, though I have yet to find something about religion and philosophy. He did take a trip last year through India with his family, so I’m thinking he has to have some interest in that area as well. It would have been nice the hear his thoughts in that regard as well.

Anyway, here are some links to his blogs and radioshow:
His personal webpage and blog (english version of his page, though not as frequently updated)
Future and futuristic thinking blog (norwegian)
Vitenskapsprogrammet - his radio show on Radio Norge(norwegian). I love the podcasts.

This is very good news

I read a story(norwegian) in aftenposten about the meeting a family had with the norwegian hospital and staff, where they were met with excellent care and competence.

These stories makes me happy and makes me believe there is still a lot of good in human kind!

I have recently been talking about that we bought a house and about something that I’ve called preemptive authority (I’m not sure if there’s a better word for it in english or if it even exists outside the norwegian borders). Just to enlighten what it is: In norway one can buy an apartment or a house in a community. So if somebody within that community put their house out for sale then anybody can bid. In the end, somebody win that bid. After somebody have won the bid, it’s published in the community that the house will be sold for the price of the winning bid. If a member within the community want the house, then he can get the house for the same price as the winning bid and there is nothing the bid winner can do. He’s been overturned.

The preemptive authority requires that the community must do some work whenever a place is put out for sale, and therefore there is a fee involved. A rather large fee (4400 NOK) at that.

When we recieved the sales description, the fees were also listed as “Preemptive authority fee”. As the dupes we are we concluded that since we didn’t have a preemptive authority we wouldn’t need to pay the fee. Our conclusion was that this fee would have to be paid when somebody used their authority. Wrong!

Reason: The community still had to conduct the work behind preemptive authority, so we would be charged.

Well, since I’m not a person to accept it that easily I started to make some investigations. I talked to our real estate broker, which stated that this was common practice among all real estate brokers.

So I called the Norwegian Consumer Council. They pointed me to a law where this fee was explicitly mentioned.

This is what the law states (in nowegian):

§ 4-22. Gebyr

(1) Burettslaget kan krevje eit vederlag på opp til fem gonger rettsgebyret for å ta imot eit førehandsvarsel som nemnt i § 4-15 første ledd andre punktum. Blir forkjøpsretten gjort gjeldande, skal vederlaget betalast tilbake.

(2) Burettslaget kan setje som vilkår for å gjere forkjøpsretten gjeldande at forkjøpsretthavaren betalar eit vederlag på opp til fem gonger rettsgebyret.

(3) Føresegnene i paragrafen her kan ikkje fråvikast.

The english translation is something like this:
§ 4-22. Fees
(1) The community can demand a fee up to five times the courtfee to accept an advanced notice as mentions in § 4-15 first something, second statement. If the preemptive authority is used, the fee is to be repaid.

(2) The community can set as term that to apply the preemptive authority the one that has the preemptive authority must pay a fee up to five times the courtfee.

(3) The statements in this paragraph can’t be overturned.

In my mind the second statement pretty much tells me that I shouldn’t pay this fee.

But I didn’t get the real estate broker to agree with me, and there hasn’t been a court case about this, so either I have to go to a lawyer with it, or well, pay it up. The reason according to the broker is:
1. The fee was listed in the sale description, and we agreed to it when we made the bid.
2. The law states we have to pay it.
3. It’s common practice among real estate brokers, so therefore we have to pay it.

Our counter reasons:
1. Yes, it was in the sale description
2. We think the law says that since this only applies to those who use their preemptive authority, it doesn’t apply for us. Therefore the seller should pay this fee.
3. Even if it’s common practice it doesn’t make it correct within the law.

4400,- isn’t enough money for me to take it to a lawyer, so I just have to give it up, but I still don’t like it. I would really liked to hear what other people have to say about it.

In my mind this tells me that mostly all real estate brokers actually breaks the law.

The law: http://www.lovdata.no/all/hl-20030606-039.html (norwegian)

There are some new suggestions coming from the government to change the fee practice, so that the seller have to pay all the fees: http://forbrukerportalen.no/Artikler/2007/1185452472.13 (norwegian)