All right, if all we want is to see people getting it on, there are certainly easier ways to see that than to watch a TV show where you know it won’t really happen. The movements you see under the covers might as well be one of the participants having a seizure. But there is actually one reason to watch this show: To get a very good laugh. It’s a phenomenal social study. Let’s have a look at this year’s lineup!

Among the 10 contestants, there are – of course – five men and five women. For some weird reasons there are no rocket scientists in the team this year, but we have a wide selection of other professions: Event manager, model/hair dresser, bartender/team leader, phone marketer, another bartender and – wait for it – a horse chiropractor! I didn’t even know that was a profession, but now I know. How the hell does that work out anyway?

All the contestants have their own video profile, and they all come highly recommended – if nothing else to just get an idea of what you might expect if you plan to tune in tonight. Some of them exercise an impressive level of insight; like Stian. He says that his trick is that he is good looking, because he is not that good at talking to people. Probably not the worst thing to have going for you in the context you’re about to enter, Stian.

“Because of the hair and the boobs, I’ve been labeled a bimbo. I’ve heard that a 150 times before. But I’m not, I can just say that at once.” — Tine, 23 years old, Paradise Hotel 2010 contestant.

If you enjoy doing the facepalm, this will be an excellent chance to do it quite often for about an hour. Am I the only one who finds it a wee bit ironic that the the season premiere is scheduled for the Internal Women’s Day?

Personally, I wouldn’t mind being locked up in that Mexican hotel. Free food, free drinks and lengthy discussions about quantum mechanics by the pool. Sure, all the cameras might ruin the moment, but with the density of CCTV cameras in urban areas today, there’s no real difference.

So, yes, I’m only making fun of the participants because I’m jealous.

Preparing the food was surprisingly easy and quick and I thought I’d share the recipes with you in case you’d like to have a little fun in the kitchen yourself. We got the recipes for the starter and the dessert from the book “Mine beste sider” by Andreas Viestad and the main course from Matoppskrifter.no. It was all in Norwegian, but I’ve made an honest attempt on an English translation. Please don’t hold it against me.

Starter: Classic Bruschetta

A few slices of a type of bread you like
Parma ham
Rucola salad
Mozzarella cheese
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Pour olive oil on the slices of bread and fry them in a frying pan. When they look exactly the way you like them, take the slices out of the frying pan and add Parma ham, Rucola salad, Mozzarella cheese, salt and pepper. Easy as pie!

Main course: Crayfish Tails and Pasta in Gorgonzola Sauce

2 dl Crème fraîche
125 grams Gorgonzola
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup of parsley
A bell pepper
1 can of crayfish tails – in brine or frozen
400 grams of Pasta

Boil the pasta as directed on package. Pour the water from the pot, then add crumbled Gorgonzola, then Crème fraîche and the bell pepper. Stir well and heat to the boiling point. Add pepper and the crayfish tails until it’s all heated. Sprinkle with parsley and serve in warm, deep plates.

Dessert: Triple Chocolate Dessert

1 liter of chocolate ice cream
6-8 crackers with chocolate bits in them, for instance Maryland Cookies
1 large bar of semisweet chocolate
50 grams unsalted butter
The seeds from 1 vanilla pod

Take the ice cream out of the freezer and let it soften a bit. Smash the crackers and mix them with the ice cream, then put the ice cream back into the freezer. Just before you’re going to serve the dessert, take the ice cream out of the freezer again. Melt the chocolate bar and the butter in a mixing bowl placed in hot water. Add the vanilla seeds into the mix. Serve the ice cream on large plates or in ice cream bowls. Pour the chocolate sauce on the ice cream and serve while it’s still hot.

You might consider not using all the seeds from the vanilla pod depending on what kind of chocolate you use. If you’re using chocolate with a mild flavor, the vanilla taste might be a bit dominating if you add all the seeds.

The “show” in the title of this entry refers to the episodes of the second season of Dexter that we watched when the food was gone. It’s a good show, the second season might not be as good as the first one, but it’s still not the worst kind of entertainment on a lazy Saturday evening.

I read somewhere that it’s a good idea to stick to the topic through an entire entry because rambling on about nothing and everything makes it hard for the reader to stay focused.

Consider this entry a test of your attention span, because now I’m about to change the topic. I’m not worried about you, really, you’re an intelligent bunch. I’d even call you the elite of the interweb crowd. So here goes.

On Saturday I went to a downtown record slash DVD store and took advantage of their sale to get some of the DVDs I needed to get a respective collection. Of course, “respective” is a matter of opinion, but at least I got some good – also subject to opinion – releases. I even stumbled across a DVD I decided to give Klas for his birthday. So hurry up, man, invite me to your birthday party!

While we’re talking about DVDs – see, I’m not changing the topic in this paragraph – season eight of both The Simpsons and South Park are now available in the stores. At least in some countries, The Simpsons won’t be released until the 25th of October in Norway and ordering it from abroad is way too expensive because of the import taxes.

Since I started my South Park collection with the American editions – dumb, dumb, dumb – I have to keep ordering the DVDs from the US – dumb, dumb, dumb. Being a neurotic collector there is no way I’m moving to another edition…

I have issues, I know.

Now block quotes are displayed like this.

Much nicer than the old way that you probably don’t remember anyway. The block quote design was borrowed from A List Apart, but I really doubt that that’s the only site on the interweb that display their block quote in that way. Credit is due to ALA anyway, since that’s where I got the quote graphics. Besides, it’s a great site with some good reads if you’re into web site design and usability.

I’ve found a site today that looks somewhat interesting, jogin.com. The site belongs to Tomas Jogin, a Swedish programmer and designer who also knows how to write entertaining entries.

Yesterday I missed Battlestar Galactica because of work. I really need a PVR, but they are still a tad expensive.

This is just incoherent rambling.

Science fiction is probably the one genre I like the most, both in literature, movies, TV series and computer games. I’ve been through tons of science fiction books, including the extremely well written original Dune series and the infamous Neuromancer, the book that in many ways defined cyberpunk when it was released in 1984.

My favorite movie of all times, Strange Days also has a science fiction-ish theme as it’s set around new years eve 1999, about five years into the future relative to 1995, the year it was released. Of course, that’s all ancient history now. The movie also has other elements that makes it a hell of a movie.

When it comes to TV series, Babylon 5 is without doubt the best science fiction series I’ve ever watched. I never got the hang of Star Trek, it takes itself too seriously, while Babylon 5 had just the right attitude.

Babylon 5 is, as opposed to Battlestar Galactica, gotta-get-this-on-DVD-good. Or maybe it will just ruin everything. After all, it’s over 10 years since I watched it.

Since we’re keeping a strict balance between the sexes, we’re looking for two hot chicks, preferably Miss Universe contestants, and some guy. The process begun today and will continue until Monday. Whish us luck, because we have fucked up the selection process before.

If you’re able to tune in to Norwegian TV channel TVNORGE be sure to watch tonight at 21:30 CET when Dino, one of Gine’s* friends and a semi-frequent commenter here, makes his reality TV debut.

Today I witnessed my first Windows Vista related crash, without even having touched the OS or any software running on it. Extremely low-quality photo available in the Moblog.

*Just to clarify: Gine == The Girlfriend, she has just decided that it was OK that I used her name now. But I wouldn’t expect to see her in the cast any time soon.

I’ve been debugging the Moblog but can’t quite figure out why it’s not working. It looks like there is either something with the global PHP configuration used by my host or something with the operator’s firewall. Right now I’m hoping my host might be able to help me. In the meantime I’ve manually uploaded a picture of a limo painted by a colour blind guy. It looks a little bit like that Audi TT I saw a couple of years ago.

Tomorrow Klas passes through Oslo on his way to Trondheim, so I’ll probably meet up with him and have a couple of beers. It’s Friday, after all.