Hallo Dear XT Fans!
These days, growing up seems to be harder than in my young days. My parents demanded my respect and good manners. In those days we were more dependent on our parents and possessions were few and modest. A new bicycle was at the pinnacle of my wishes and it was only earned by hard work doing chores and saving my meagre pocket money.

These days young people seem to have every luxury.
Mere bicycles are not good enough. Mobile phones are owned by 10 year old kids. Nike brand apparel is the cool thing to wear even if it costs 3 times more  than normal clothing. The uniforms of youth .. hardly individualist, more cultist I'd say.

Yet our children are not as happy and carefree as we were. Peer pressure has grown into a monster that controls our lives. Communication in the form of TV has to be the culprit. Advertising pressure even causes small children to whine and cajole their parents into buying more useless McDonalds toys so that their friends can be impressed. "Keeping up with the Jones's" has become an obsession that affects all ages except perhaps the older and wiser "uncool" types such as myself.

Along with this insatiable appetite for more luxury
comes an unwillingness to respect parents and to display good manners.  Impatience to "have the latest" far outweighs any desire to go out and actually earn the money oneself to pay for the goods. Avoidance of work seems to be a national pastime that is rewarded with handouts and the pursuit of illegal means of getting money.

Looking at todays youth, it's easy to pick the ones that will be successful in life - they don't try to swim against the current. They follow their parents advice which is based on experience and collective wisdom. Sure, they sacrifice some independence and individuality but they simply race ahead with ease when it comes to getting a good education and finding rewarding careers. Everything else comes easily to that sensible group.

So much time is wasted by youth trying to establish that mythical state of freedom & independence from the parents. It's as if they're trying to re-invent the wheel. But that indulgence has a very high cost.

My advice to today's youth - be good and follow your parents advice. I guarantee you'll be very thankful later in life. Rebellious and disrespectful behaviour will get you nowhere except into trouble.

We parents are not asking for capitulation, but for co-operation. Stay on "our side" and help us and we'll help you! - It's that simple!  Go against our wishes and take your chances .. you'll only bring misery on yourself and learn everything by bitter experience ..

On a more positive note, I wish you all a happy and successful New Year in 2003.

And like RoboCop said  "stay out of trouble!"

Ha det until next month.

Dr John K. Flynn B.D.Sc.
The Xerostar Times Editor 
Caring for Creative People
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Puck, Op. 71 No. 3Little Bird, Op. 43 No. 4Watchmans's song in E major, Op. 12 No. 3Wedding-day at Troldhaugen, Op. 65 No. 6
March of the Dwarfs, Op. 54 No. 3Rustle of Spring

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Norway is a ruggedly beautiful country of mountains, fjords and glaciers. It offers incredible wilderness hiking, year-round skiing, and some of the world's most scenic ferry, bus and train rides. The 'Land of the Midnight Sun' has delightfully long summer days, pleasantly low-key cities, unspoiled fishing villages and rich historic sites that include Viking ships and medieval stave churches.

Norway's varied geography surprises many visitors who imagine the country as a frozen monolith. On the contrary, the temperate south includes rolling farmlands, enchanted forests and sunny beaches as well as the dramatic Western Fjords. North of the Arctic Circle, the population thins, the horizons grow wider and the temperature dips. Here the terrain ranges from soaring coastal peaks to vast boreal forests and barren treeless peninsulas. Adventurous travelers can journey even further north to the Svalbard archipelago, where seals, walruses and polar bears sun themselves on ice floes. It's no wonder that Norway prizes its stunning natural wonders and retains a robust frontier character unusual in Europe.

Area: 385,155 sq km
Population: 4,513,000
Capital city: Oslo (pop 508,730)
People: 97% Nordic, Alpine & Baltic, with a Sami minority
Language: Bokmål, Nynorsk & Sami
Religion: Christian (86.3% Evangelical Lutheran)
Government: Constitutional monarchy
Prime Minister: Kjell Magne Bondevik
King: Harald V

GDP: US$120.5 billion
GDP per head: US$30,100
Annual growth: 3.5%
Inflation: 3.1%
Major industries: Oil, natural gas, computers, high technology, fishing, fish farming, forestry, shipping, shipbuilding and paper production
Major trading partners: EU (esp. UK, Germany & Sweden)
Member of EU: no

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Don't miss the surprising, exciting, fascinating conclusions in Part 2  - Vladimir exposes the wondrous results he has obtained from years of research.  His discovery is of great significance to scientists and historians alike.
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Original Pac-man was created in 1980 by Japan's company Namco. The form and color of the Pac-Man resemble a pizza missing one piece. Namco's designer Tohru Iwatani hit upon the idea when eating a pizza. The rest belongs to history. The brand name Pac-Man is licensed by more than 250 companies and is used in more than 400 products. There are Pac-Man air fresheners, telephones, corn flakes and even automobiles. The name itself originated with Japanese word ?paku-paku? meaning "eating". 

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Everything you ever wanted to know about Norway is at this site and includes sections on Politics, Economy, Culture, History, Education and Travel

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This is really a computer game from France which teaches the basics of music. A fun way to learn!

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What food, then, is Norwegian? Asked which dish they think of first as Norwegian, 65 per cent of Norwegians replied: meatcakes, while 36 per cent think of lamb and cabbage stew and 23 per cent said cod. A nationwide survey showed distinct regional preferences where dishes are concerned. While meatcakes rank first in all regions, westerners rank potato dumplings second, and Oslo-dwellers rank "lutefisk" (dried cod steeped in lye) third, just ahead of dried mutton ribs and fresh cod. 

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King Harald and Queen Sonja's children, Crown Prince Haakon and Princess Martha Louise, have proved extremely popular members of the next generation of young, modern European royals. Crown Prince Haakon's courtship of Mette-Marit was initially a subject of controversy due to her past and status as a single mother. She soon won the public around, however, and their 2001 nuptials were greeted with widespread celebration. In 2002 Princess Martha Louise married writer Ari Behn, in a romantic Trondheim ceremony. 

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Robert Zemeckis's new film project, "The Polar Express," is pushing the envelope in film-making technology, creating a live-action movie without filming any true "live" action. All of the scenes will be shot with a digital camera in front of a blank screen, with the sets to be filled in later by computers. The actors will be wired with motion-capture sensors that will store each movement digitally, to be used later as a guide for the animators who will create the actual film footage. 
Unlike other digitally animated movies like "Shrek," "The Polar Express" animators are striving to create images that actually look like the actors who will "star" in the film. The film will also combine characters based on real and virtual people -- for instance, the child version of Tom Hanks' character will be backward engineered using photos of Hanks as a youth and 3D digital representations of his current facial and muscle structure. "This is an ambitious, exciting project for us. We've seen the early tests, and it's like nothing I've ever seen," says Martin Shafer, chairman and CEO of Castle Rock Entertainment, which is making the movie.

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Grieg composed his music at a time when Norway was seeking to define its national identify while still yoked to Sweden after a long period of domination by Denmark. With his notes, he sought to paint a musical picture of the people, the scenery, and the moods of Norway, establishing himself as an important Nationalist composer. But he also succeeded in writing music whose emotional and thoughtful elements people everywhere could identify with. Sadly for those who appreciate charm, grace and sweetness in their music, the anti-romanticism following World War I sent Grieg's popularity into a decline from which it has not yet fully recovered. 
       Grieg was born to an English father who served as the British consul at Bergen, Norway, and a Norwegian mother who had studied music in Hamburg, Germany. From the age of six, he received piano lessons from his mother, then began his formal training at the Leipzig Conservatory. There his work was shaped by the influence of such German composers as Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann. 
       During a stay in Copenhagen, he met Rikard Nordraak, a young nationalist composer who introduced him to the northern folk tunes of Norway. Later, in 1864-65, he helped found the Copenhagen Concert Society. When he met the great Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen in Rome, he began a relationship that led to his best known but not, according to most critics, his best work, the Peer Gynt Suite, an incidental accompaniment to Ibsen's play, Peer Gynt. 
       Grieg was primarily a miniaturist - his main strength is devoted to small forms with simple plots, as shown in most of his piano pieces. Interesting chromatic harmonies and uncomplicated rhythms are among the characteristics of his compositions. Grieg once described his music in these words: "Artists like Bach and Beethoven erected churches and temples on the heights. I only wanted to build dwellings for men in which they might feel happy and at home." 

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