Chinchilla Beer Pong

American sport becomes me. Last night I participated in the ancient art of beer pong. For those of you who don't know this game I will now try to explain. You have two teams with six or ten plastic cups filled 1/3rd with that sweet nectar of the gods - Beer. The two teams stand on opposite sides of a table, with their cups arranged as in the lovely picture to the left. Armed only with a ping pong ball you MUST manage to throw it into one the other teams' cups - and if you do the result will be quite satisfying. Satisfying indeed. Ehh...they have to drink that cup. Ingenious huh!

As for rodent control our neighbors' apartment leaves something to be desired. Chinchillae were constantly on the move. Skipping across shoulders, clawing up pants and running around in circles for no apparent reason! Having never seen this freak of nature before I was grossed out, assuming that there was indeed a mutated rat problem in our building. I felt kinda like this guy:
For more on these fluffy critters visit CHINWORLD.COM

The Proof of Your Rosey Elephant... with some hills and stuff

Shizzah! School keeps me bizzah! I'm up to my knees in plays. Last night I was tested for the first time in improvisation class, led by feared mentor Marc Marno. Proud disciple of Mr. Strasberg himself. I took the stage nervous as hell, and sure enough - I sucked!! Thank Jehova. There is still much to learn. And learn I did. Marno proved to be quite understanding and helpful and devoted two hours of class to me and my scene partner, provoking thoughts that will ultimately better our performances. So, three hero stars and a big gulp to Marno, for making my day.

Improvisation is only one of six classes - and the only one that doesn't follow written plays. I am at this time reading my ass off whenever I find the time. The ones that I'm currently working on are The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams, The Time Of Your Life by William Saroyan, Proof by David Auburn, I Never Sang For My Father by Whatshisface McWho and The Hills Look Like White Elephants by Hemingway. So, sho'nuff daddy's a busy bee.

Certain classes revolve around sensory work. The ability to feel objects and provoke emotion through the help of muscle and sense memory. Sounds nucking futs. And quite frankly it kinda is. It's a looooong (notice the use of multiple o's to emphasize the longevity) process which will take me many months to master (+ for bokstavrim). I'm am no Helen Keller - yet. However I am not giving up on this, as I find it increasingly interesting and helpful in my Road Runner-paced present life.

Another honorable mention is face of stage and screen: Tom Badall, whose class is called Acting on Camera. Whenever he teaches I feel like I'm in the presence of someone who actually knows what the fizzah he's talking about. At the same he is an unconventional man, and I'm again inspired by the fact that a person such as him is part of the schools roster. I'm reading The Rose Tattoo for him on Monday. Better put in some work! I seriously want to get in with his good graces.

In the meantime, if you're still with me in this lamest of lame posts I tell thee: Suck not when sucketh can, and spray your golden grace on the filthy sheets of oppression!

Holla at yo man in Turkmenistan, I'm out!

Don't make eye contact!!

LA's public transportation system is perhaps more underused than Stephen Hawking's Singstar set. There's always room in the heavy metal train cars of the Metro Red Line, that speeds through Hollywood and ends up on Union Station near my place. The thing is that everyone in this place has a car and would rather sit in a two hour queue on the highway than ride these "peon" transporters. Ehh, it's an image thing. Yours truly however - will be spending a lot of time in this comfortable environment getting to know his feet a lot better. Me and Hiro from Heroes. He rides it. Rides it good.

The Fashion District

WHERE ARE WE??? Downtown is weird man. My friend Lara was showing me a part known as the fashion district. You go around a corner and suddenly you're in a tight market street in Mexico. Everything is cheaper than everywhere else. They have everything from unreleased DVD's to Jimi Hendrix shirts to Jarlsberg (well, maybe not THE Jarlsberg, but close). I bought - wait for it - 6 pairs of socks!! The place looks kinda like this and this (click on the far side of the image to turn around). Pretty weird huh!

Heard "It's real Egyptian cotton man, it's cheap homes"

1% inspiration, 99% perspiration -TJ

Hey cheese!

It's finally here, the blog no-one wanted to see! The place where the moronic half-wit who goes by the name Einar Wist ?ien (fill in the blanks) will attempt to keep you and yours updated on what the hell he set out to do on September tenth 2k7 and will be doing for a year. Any useless piece of information will find it's way here if time allows it. I'm writing this mofo in English so my two American friends can read it. Seems only fair that they should get an insight into the warped mind of a Norwegian stranded in Lalaland.

I'm sitting in my new residence, a loft in Downtown Los Angeles, in a neighborhood where most people are students, artists and Chinese-Japanese-Korean-Thai-Americans (not to mention homeless crack heads and rugged ass gangstas). My street - Vignes Street lies in Little Tokyo, a charming if somewhat run down part of town, just ten minutes from Union Station. Until two days ago I've been staying at "The Sexiest Hostel In the World" in West Hollywood, an extremely giddy place, with more Germans than you could throw a beat off rag at, not to mention forced interaction around every corner. Felt like what I imagine summer camp feels like. I did however meet an Australian traveler, Ed, who I spent most of my time with up there. The hostel was four blocks away from my school: "The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute", the reason I'm here. Through the year I will be taught the divine secrets of method acting which hopefully will make me a better actor, not just an aspiring douche. After attending classes for a week I'm really satisfied with what I've been learning this far. The process is nothing like what I had imagined. This is going to be a lot of work. I need that. For a short history of Mr. Strasberg and the method check out the institute.

The guys I live with are Jonathan and Tommy. J is studying architecture at the prestigious school Sciarc, that's just a couple of blocks away. Tommy does special effects for movies and is always working on some strange stuff. We share interests when it comes to weird Americana and grown up toys. The guy whose room I'm now living in is Peter Dang - a graduated Sciarcee who recently got a job working for Snøhetta. I imagine Oslo will be as weird a trip for him as LA is for me. So if you run into an Asian Canadian on the streets of Oslo who goes by that name, buy him a beer and show him the town. Ikke Stargate er du snill. I've only been living here for two days so an in depth experience log is non-existent at this time. But I got a good feeling about this. Kind of a beatnik hippie vibe around this place - Lovin' every minute of it! I'll be posting a video tour of the place as soon as I get my piece of shit camera to work - wonderful investment that I really haven't used since I was in the band Timeless Appearance \ Pygmalion \ Pigmalion \ Couch (later to be known as Officer Downs, and in the future: Only time will tell!)

Holla at your sweet stuff and sniff the grits where the butt splits! I'm out!

Einar AKA Luren AKA Michael Hammerstrom AKA EHHHHHHHH!!