How to Drive in Iceland 1: A Beginner's Guide**

If you're concerned that your driving skills cause you to appear as a tourist, then take note of the lessons below. And remember, practice makes perfect! Rome was not built in a day!

Lesson 1: When approaching a roundabout intersection, make sure to completely cut off the vehicle approaching from the left even though the silly driver's ed books will tell you that those cars have the right-of-way since they have already navigated into the intersection before you. (Authority is not to be trusted!) Make sure to flip off the driver after they have completely slammed on their brakes to avoid hitting your priceless Land Rover/Hummer/Porsche Cayenne. You need to show your dominance to your prey. Do not bother putting down the cell phone in your left hand even while taking your right hand off the manual shifter to flip off the other driver. That would not be proper phone etiquette.

Lesson 2: You should always leave a maximum of 8 inches when tailgating the vehicle in front of you. If the vehicle in front of you is exceeding the posted speed limit by less than 20 km then an acceptable maximum space is 4 inches. If you see a police car (marked by the word "Lögreglan") within distance, do not back off the car that you are tailgating. The Lögreglan are only concerned with shooting stranded Greenlandic polar bears which are sometimes mistaken as sheep or horses.

Lesson 3: If you smoke, then it is acceptable to throw the cigarette butts out of your window whilst operating the automobile. Since it is Iceland, the land is not dry enough to spark any wildfires and there are not enough trees on the island to constitute any forests to burn down.

Lesson 4: You may also let your young children hang outside of the windows, unrestrained by a safety belt or child seat, while operating the vehicle at any speed. Other motorists will find your wind-blown child to be adorable and since your youngster will be busy amusing themselves you will not need to bother ending your cell phone conversation to discipline your child. Everyone benefits.

Happy Travels! Stay Tuned for "How to Drive in Iceland 2: Make Your Own Parking Spot"...

**These lessons may also be applied to driving in the Silicon Valley region of Northern California (USA) with exception to Lesson 3 (since it's much easier to spark wildfires in that region).

Iceland's equivalent of QVC

It's nearly 2:00 a.m. and lo and behold I find myself awake with insomnia once again. Could it be chronic jet lag? The midnight sun? My lack of a 9-5 job and the structured days that come with it?

No, silly reader.

It's this fascinating infomercial-program that is airing on SkjárEinn which is one of our 2 TV channels besides Sjónvarpið/RÚV which basically has dead-air at this time of night. This particular rip-off of QVC is called "Vörutorg" and if you're awake at 3:00 in the afternoon or 1:00 in the morning then you can buy a limited selection of crap that probably costs 2/3 less in the US. In the show's defence however, it does have cooler Euro-techno type music and the informercial-models are slightly better looking. It also lacks the over-excited female hosts wearing bedazzled & puffy-painted Christmas sweaters. (You will remember puffy paint if you were a kid in the 80s)

Iceland does have other TV channels of course if you're willing to pony up the Kronars to pay for them. But why would you want to subscribe to expensive pay-channels when you can watch second-rate US reality shows and slightly-aged American or British dramas? There are also some great shows from Denmark. Problem is that the subtitles are in Icelandic...which does not help me much.

On the upside, SkárEinn does have twice-daily blocks of random music videos from around the world. So I must thank the show 'Óstöðvandi tónlist' for helping to expand my iTunes collection! P.S. You must check out my new favorite music video by Gonzales called Working Together. It´s for all you corporate slaves. (OK I was a slave too...busted!)

If you come to Iceland for an extended period of time, like me, then you will discover that you need a hobby other than watching TV. Any suggestions for a hobby?

Holy $%(#$% Shit I live in Iceland!

When did this happen? Have I really been here 3 weeks? Have I been sleep walking all this time or just too confused by the language to process reality for that time period?

I live here. Wow.

On another note, it's almost 2:30 a.m. here so perhaps I should go to sleep and think about this some more tomorrow morning!

JB