Six people, one case of Tannenzäpfle, three bottles of Soju, two bottles of gin and one spray can of Silly String. And this is what you'll get...

One and half weeks ago good friends Saskia, Dani and Tim held their annual birthday party at Saskia's parents garage. This tradition goes back at least five or six years, each time with a different theme. This year it was 'KIK'. The aim was to buy a complete outfit at – admittedly pretty trashy – german clothing discounter KIK for the least amount of money. At the end of the night the three winners were presented with their grand prizes: three variations of utterly useless flytraps.

Anyways, I really like these parties. For one because it's one of the few times of the year where almost my entire old high school clique comes together. And also because it's so reminiscent of the old days, when during summers there was a garage party almost every weekend – with cheap booze, bad music and the occasional teeny drama. We still got the booze and music but the drama's been replaced with drunken (pseudo)philosophical discussions :D

Good to have had one of those again. Been a while.

My new dream job. Ok, maybe just an incredibly witty way to make a headline for the two concerts I went to last week: Girl Talk and Squarepusher.

First one was truly great – blood, sweat and tears baby! Seriously though, I did bust my lip open on some girls head that night. Anyways, what's extremely sympathetic about that young man from Pittsburgh, is, that he actually wants to be surrounded by the crowd and explicitly asked the people to enter the stage as soon as possible. And they did. He thanked them by throwing a helluva a party. Now if the only the Norwegian crowd did too... No, I don't wanna be too harsh, they get a B– for effort. Still, when it's Girl Talk in the house there should better be more than 1/3 of the people dancing their ass off. Next time. By the way, the opening act was the hilarious Captain Credible. That guy went totally havoc on stage while producing some pretty bad ass music. Be sure to check out his videos when visiting his MySpace site!

As for Squarepusher. Well, it wasn't spectacular but it wasn't horrible either. I guess 'decent' describes it best. Probably a concert with him 5 years ago would have been more thrilling. Still good to have seen such a legend of electronic music live for once. By the way, all the pics from the Girl Talk concert are © Bjørnar Håland / groove.no. My cam only seemed to wanna work after the concert :P

Shit, that was good! Last night was by far the best party I've been to here in Oslo. It was nice to see that Norwegians actually can get down and dirty when the right premises are given. And Buraka Som Sistema did just that. Pumping, energetic, all out Kuduro sound from beginning to end – it was basically impossible not to freak out for one and a half hours straight. Best moments of the evening: getting 15 girls on the stage to 'represent' (hot) and one song sampling The Prodigy's 'Firestarter'. Not quite the most intense concert I've ever been to (that title is still held by a number of Ska and Punk concerts a couple of years back) but definitely among the top ranks.

Now I just need to find people to go to these gigs with me (boys, I miss you!). I'm getting kind of bored of always having to go by myself, but no one I've met so far seems to share my particular taste in music... But at least it felt like Bubba was there – had a 2m buff guy with white t-shirt, 5mm hair and un-shaved face dancing next to me all concert long :D

Unfortunately, my trusty little party cam had one too many hits last night, resulting in partial data loss. The pics and vids left on the memory card aren't really worth showing, so I'll just post Buraka's latest video, which gives a pretty good impression of their style. Just imagine that in a packed 10x12m club with temperatures around 35°C, much more bass and movement...

EDIT: Stian told me of a blog today that actually had quite a couple of nice shots from the concert. I put a couple of the together and dropped them here to look at. For more check Smuglesning.

Yupp, you guessed it – another concert. Last Monday I went to see Bloc Party at Sentrum Scene, which despite its relatively big size is a pretty cool location. Lots of small, slightly elevated platforms let even the people in the back have a good view. In addition, there's a seated gallery for people who just wanna watch the concerts in more chill way.

The concert itself was good but not great. The sound was pretty awfully mixed from time to time and the Norwegian crowd just didn't wanna get quite jiggy wid' it. I had seen Bloc Party before, a couple of years back in Frankfurt. When I walked out of the concert hall back then, my jeans were completely soaking wet with sweat from all the dancing and pogo-ing. This time around the people only really went nuts for the last two songs. Of course there was a bit of jumping and clapping before as well, but even singer Kele Okereke, who had first praised us as "probably the most stylish crowd we have ever played for", at one point shouted "C'mon people, this isn't fucking Snow Patrol playing here!".

But hey, whenever things actually started getting a bit rougher, the securities up front would get up on the stands, point at people, give 'em a grim look and shake their heads as if saying "Any more movement and I'm pulling you out!". It's a rock concert for fuck's sake! If people arent' allowed to freak out and have fun then, when ever? They seriously have to get their security 'concept' overhauled...

By the way, the opening act, of which I only saw three songs – quite good ones though – was Delphic. And just listen to the shockingly amazing sound quality of my digicam ;)

To welcome the new guys Stian, Åge and Alex at Bleed, we had a little gathering yesterday. First at the agency with beer, cider (for the German sissy boy...) and good ol' Dolly Dimple's pizza. And later at Revolver with more beer and weird conversations. Fun night, but I'm never ever touching that damn Snus again...

Bleed Crew vs. Party Svenske's Finest

...was a good one. Ok, technically it was the parties of last Friday and Saturday, but this way the title sounds better.

Friday we had a traditional Christmas dinner called Julebord with Bleed at the most posh / fancy restaurant I have ever been in my entire life. Beautiful view over the city, lots of people in suits and evening gowns (me posing as the definition of 'underdressed'), very exquisite food and a wide array of alcoholic beverages all through the feasting. In return we landed at probably the worst club, I have ever been to. Bad interior, worse music and more people in suits and dresses with the false belief they could dance. At least Alex and I had something to gossip about...

Saturday started with another dinner, this time at Johan's place, who prepared some pretty damn good thai food. Cheap wine and vodka got us in the mood for several sing star battles (I lost most of them) before heading out to an inner city bar. This alleged popular gay hang out turned out to be quite a lot of fun. We demolished some furnishing, sang our hearts out to Will Smith songs and had mad SLR cam battles. Plus I was approached by a Swedish/Swiss girl who was really eager to take a picture of my t-shirt – turns out she's the girlfriend of Michi Albin, founder of Albin Snowboards, whose stuff I was wearing then. Passing out to Family Guy at Johan's place and walking home through the shivering cold at 6:30 a.m. made for a pretty interesting night.



Nice.

Yesterday evening was my flatmate Niklas' last one in Oslo for quite a while. The bastard's going to Austria to 'work' at a snowboard shop, party and ride fresh powder every day for half a year. A couple of his Swedish friends were throwing a little going-away party for him at their place and we were asked to join. So Øystein, ex-roomie Moy and I followed that invitation.

To make along story short: the night ended in mayhem. First at a very cool apartment with nice view over the bay and then at a cheesy bar/club called Tempest. But hey, we were drunk as fuck and I had maybe the most fun night here so far. Especially because the guys I was with were pleasantly non-macho, meaning their first immediate act after walking into the bar was not to scout the premise for hot tits'n'ass before going on an all evening pussy hunt. They, just like me, seem to be going out to get drunk, dance and have fun. And not primarily to get laid. I think I'll be going out with these guys a bit more in the future :)

Some side notes:

• I am now officially known as 'Ze Gerrmen'
• vodka + beer + tequila + cuba libre + more beer + party smoking is not a good idea
• neither is leaving the window open all night in your drunk sleep when it's below zero outside
• "I dare you to dance with that fat chick" is a fun game
• people puking blood is not a pretty sight
• and have you ever thought of smoking a potato?