Simens Asylum

Merry Christmas, Happy hannuka, Winter Vacation, Seasons Greetings……

You know the drill! : )

The Asylum wishes you a great snowy celebration of whatever gets you going this time of year!

Simen is old. Long live Simen!

For all of you “The End is Nigh!” and “Science will destroy everything!” people…

They’re about to fire up the LHC

Yeah…

(If you know, and don’t care, skip next section)
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For those of you who aren’t nerdy enough to know what the hell the LHC is I’ll give an quick, mostly non-scientific explenation:

The LHC, Large Hadron Collider, is in fact an Hadron collider, that is very large. It’s a ring that covers many miles, like a really long tube. It forces tiny objects (particals, atoms, electrons) to collide.

They might use it as kinda like an fusion-reactor beta test. Fusion is how the sun makes energy. The sun is far away, the Swiss mountians of Doom are not.

So aside from exploding the planet with WAY more energy than we can possebly control, it should be able to do 2 other things.

1: Make Black Holes. I have no idea how this works, but my guess is that if that happens, we’re screwed.

2: Make anti-matter (dark matter, black materia… dunno). A really smart scientist guy has stated that LOOKING at this stuff might make reality implode. It sounds stupid, but the guy is supposedly very intelligent andhave written sever books on the subject…

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Yeah, I think they were planning to start up the LHC the 10th or something… thats tomorrow…

So just in case we’re f5skd, bye bye people, nice knowing you.

Simen edit:

While some believe it’s the end of the world, others are sure we’ll find something new and exciting. I’m among those who think that a wednesday is a bad day for world destruction, very… anticlimatic.

But no worries, I was linked this picture from someone who seem to know more about what is going on there, and as long as they have something like this, why worry?

Also, check out this awesome video about the HLC…

Btw… the firct collission won’t happen until after a month…

Today is a special day for us Norwegians here, because it’s our national day today! It’s a day usually spent celebrating, cheering, waving flags and doing other patriotic stuff. It’s also a day where we fire up the barbeque, party hard and have fun.

Unfortunately, todays 17. May was overshadowed by that we had the worst weather in 50 years! Snow and rain, and no sun! So for the schools marching band, this is the worst day of this year more or less. Freezing metal and walking forever, I feel for these guys. Anyway, happy birthday Norway and hipp hipp hurray for many more. Here are some pictures that that I took today, more will come later.

Allrighty, Ithos the Catgirl Pimp will now give a detailed summary of
DESUCON!

Just to get a few minor details about the event. Desucon is a convention, a social gathering if you will. The theme is suggested to be Japanese culture, but let’s face it; it’s all about manga and anime. If you more curious, visit www.desucon.no
No, let’s begin our jurney!

First I would like to remind you all that this was my first convention ever. Also, I’m crazy.

Me and Simen arrived roughly at 14:00. Securing a small supply of Coke, we vuntured forth to find Oslo Kongressenter, where the event took place. The madness began early, as I started to recognize the cosplayers earlier than Simen. Entering the building, we could see even more of these. I’ve never actually seen a cosplayer, except on photos, and this was a lot more fun than expected (and part of the reason we stayed so long).

Ah, yesh. That would be me, with my colgate smile. Funny enough, I actually use colgate, guess it payed off. ANYWAYS!
Well inside, we were struck by the sight of many, many fellow nerds. It was guesstimated that around 500 people would show during the day. It’s actually quite a lot, in a smaller space, but it never realy feel too crowded.
I think the first thing that happened after arrival, was that Simen secured a healthy hug from one of the “Free Hugs” girls.

Of course, the sneaky bastard cleverly managed to evade the camera.
Being more picky myself, I chose a person without sign (no hug either, but she’s cute)

Ithos the Catgirl Pimp strikes!

For the confused, I will now give a layout of Desucon (You’ve been whaiting for this, haven’t you?). Feel free to add imaginary punctuations.
Desucon, I believe, is a small-medium con. A convention, or social gathering if you will. 2 shops, 2 stages with various happenings, locations for both a Tekken tournament and Pokemon Card game tournament, 4-8ish artists whose art is either sell able or displayable or both, a “chillout corner” with complementary beanbags and other seating, a info desk w/ registration for cosplay competitions and a pro photographers corner, where cosplayers can get their picture taken for free. There was also a stand with something regarding actual Japanese culture, but this stand was left mostly alone and I didn’t have a heart to break the silence. Looking back, I should have, ‘cus now it’s going to bug me.

The fanart section is the home of artists whose art is excellent. They make all kinds of anime and manga related stuff. Simen bought a really cute ladies T-shirt for his older sister. Later this made a good “Simen got womens clothing in his pants” joke, although I wonder if not only me and Simen knew it for true.

The anime-fighter-game-corner-thingamabo. We did not spend much time here. But it’s fun to watch people do those 11-hit combos most players usually think only the computer can pull off.

One of the shops. Here you could buy everything from Mario-plushies to obscure anime-keychain figgures and figurines. Also, this is where I bought my first box of pocky. “Men’s Pocky” to be precise. It tasted like coffee, and although coffee smells like heaven on earth, it tastes like grandmas armpits. I was then recommended by random girl #236 (see picture below), to try the strawberry flavored kind. They didn’t have that there, but I’ll keep it in mind.

Ithos the Catgirl Pimp strikes again! (oookey, that line starts to creep even me out…)
=^_^=

Anyways, more con!

A rather large space was reserved for the Pokemon Cardgame Tournaments. You could also buy the pokemon Mew for your gameboy (the same option was available at Play! btw) for those who wished for that. Not everyone bothered much with either tournaments nor tables:

Maybe they were done, I dunno.

NOW, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for; COSPLAY!
Much of the reason we spent 5 hours there, and what was the most fun!

I’ll write this when I’m done here (at school, might wanna work when the teacher shows up).

Also, most of what you’ve read, I already done once, damn wordpress tilted on me. First version might have been better. Feel free to ask questions, or just browse the gallery, I’ll leave it there.

And Simen takes over from here!

I’m not going to say much. We spent about four or five hours there I think, fueled solely on coca-cola. Not a good idea because with more energy we could perhaps have been there until the end. Also, everyone seemed super cool even though we hardly talked to anyone. This was confirmed later when I saw a lot of the people there on the Japani forums. Anyway…

To sum it up very shortly, it was awesome. I’ve never seen so many nice costumes before, the atmosphere there was very good and even though there were lots and lots of people, you remembered so many of them (thanks to pictures I suppose). Some had spent enormous amount of time and money in their costumes, and it showed. Others wore an empty cardbord box and cosplayed Solid Snake which was funny to. Free entrance so you didn’t have to spend any money, a couple of booths selling stuff and people giving out free hugs. What more do you want?! I <3 it and next year I’m going to cosplay as well, if I can make it there. Now look at pictures.

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Friday night me, Ithos and Bjalle went to see the Play! A Video Game Symphony concert. Play! is a concert where they play video game music performed by orchestras, choirs, bands and other performers. This time they were in Lillestrøm and performing with Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Choir, Machinae Supremacy and other performers like Rony Barrak. Directed by Arnie Roth and produced Jason M. Paul. Accompanied with three gigantic screens and enough fog to put a city out of reach it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended and will be hard to top. Read more for more text and pictures!

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The fifteenth edition of the annual three day music and arts festival Lowlands has been a great success. It’s the magic mix of several factors that made this year so special. Although the weather forecasts and line-up lowered the expectations of several attendees and the press. But after the first raindrops everyone, who didn’t know yet, soon finds out that even a monsoon couldn’t kill the mood. Maybe because pretty much everything at lowlands is beneath a big tent or maybe because the mood and the people are really in an amazing mood. Most people are very friendly probably stoned and drunk. Especially on thursday when all there is to do is the small 24 hour tent, which isn’t small and the small food shops you’ll be lingering a lot on your camping talking and meeting new people. Though there’s always the chance of having shit neighbours that just depends. It helps going with a lot of friends. I’d recommend it as well because going on your own will end up feeling really miserable no matter how amazing the concerts were, unless you are awesomely fast at making friends or just hate the whole world.

Read the rest of the post and see the gallery after the break

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This is the revisited post from Jan, now as a gallery!

So I guess I should add a little description now considering this awesome new gallery doesn’t have my super commentary with it. Our hotel was pretty close to the Reichstag and Brandenburger Tor, I’d say a five minute stroll. We went by the Reichstag and the Tor however due to the inmense popularity of said buildings we didn’t dare go in there, the waiting lines start early mornin’ till the oh so late hours. Some things that really impressed me was the Kennedy museum, which is on the Pariser Platz next to one of the million Starbucks that shines on pretty Berlin. It’s not a big museum but the photographs it displays and the rich history of John Fitzgerald Kennedy make it a very interesting one. I also really enjoyed the Dali Exposition, but that was one time only so for long term that’s not very interesting.

I wonder why glass is so popular in the current Architecture of Berlin. It looks cool in some buildings, especially the Haupt Bahnhoff of which I have no picture. But the amount used in Berlin kinda leans to overkill.

The Jewish Museum, something that’s probably on everyone’s list to see when they go to Berlin, sorta disappointed me. I kinda expected something deep, even though it shows a lot of the culture. The amount of text and history(as in written pieces, facts and such) was very lacking to me. A lot of attention went to the actual design of the museum, which is impressive and confusing. Though I still think it could use some more background. The monument however, which is pretty close to the museum, is really impressive to see. There are several pictures of it, it’s the square gray boxes in order but different heights. It has a very weird feeling, maybe because of what it represents.

Other then that Berlin is a really vibrant and interesting city. It’s worth your visit more then once!

[Show as slideshow]