Aulin

Dishes

2008-10-01T07:56:00.002+02:00

I left myself quite a huge amount of dishes yesterday. I have a cold, and as I'm a man, that makes me pretty weak. :P As a result, I had to do all the dishes today, on the same day as I'm doing the laundry and have lab prep. I decided to do them in the morning then, and I did! Before 07:00 am, the dishes were done. How's that for efficiency? Now it's 08:00 am, and time to get down to the washroom.

Random images of my sweetheart.

2008-09-26T21:49:00.002+02:00

Here she is, being all gangsta and bling-bling.

Oh, and here's Basse taking a bath. Tiny little thing. :P

Here's D with baby K on her lap. Squeeeeezing.

Here's a whole picture series of D as a baby.

This is the central picture. :D Aww. <3

And finally, here's one of the other pictures, which I thought was really cute too. :)

Efficiency and giggling

2008-09-12T06:33:00.004+02:00

Click the image in order to really see it. It's a little hard to make out in a thumbnail.

Okay, so this is the story: Yesterday morning I arrived in Lund to go to school. "Clemenstorget" (Clemen's Square) has rows upon rows of bicycle stands, where commuters have their Lund-bikes parked and ready. This day though, I noticed a funny scenario.

Down one of the aisles came a man (outlined in green in the picture) who put fliers on the parcel carriers of all the bikes. Not 5 meters behind him, came another man (outlined in red in the picture) with a garbage trolley, removing the fliers!

As D pointed out, "that's got to be efficiency in a sense". It got me giggling though, that's for sure.

Speaking of giggling, on the train home I listened to "På minuten" in my phone. That's a Swedish comedy radio show. I really, honestly sat there giggling to myself, and trying to cover up my mouth and face with my hands. It was embarrassingly weird to laugh out loud among all the people. I've only ever had that once before. It's a strangely rewarding feeling.

Aulin

2008-09-02T12:37:00.004+02:00

I just did a search for Aulin on Facebook, to see if there were anyone I might be related to. One of the avatars in the resulting search was the name Aulin and then "100mg" and some other medicin looking imagery. I thought it was amusing, and giggled at the thought of someone coming up with that idea for their avatar.

Clicking the link, to my horror I found out that there actually exists a drug called Aulin! It's pain relief medicine, but still!

I checked the official site for it, and they're boasting with copyright for the name. :S I was very perplexed and to be honest, quite enraged at the thought of my name being used for a drug, and as a registered trademark to boot. How can anyone get hold of the trademark rights for a name that hundreds of people carry? That doesn't make sense.

I read on elsewhere, to find that the drug had been taken off the market in Ireland, due to it causing liver failure and death in three patients, just last year! What the hell kind of bizarro world is this?!

I'm at a loss.

Picard would have hated the FRA!

2008-08-29T11:17:00.002+02:00

I watched the Star Trek episode "The Drumhead" yesterday. I love Picard's reasoning.

PICARD
What has happened to us, Mister
Worf?

WORF
Sir?

PICARD
I think... we're putting on a
drumhead trial...

WORF
I don't understand...

PICARD
Five hundred years ago military
officers would upend a drum on
the battlefield... sit at it and
dispense summary justice...
decisions were quick...
punishments severe... appeals
denied. Those who came to a
drumhead were doomed.

WORF
But... we know there is a traitor
here. J'Dan has admitted his
guilt.

PICARD
That's true. And he will stand
for his crimes.

WORF
Tarses has all but done the same.

PICARD
(a sharp look)
How?

WORF
He refused to answer the
question... about his Romulan
grandfather.

PICARD
That is not a crime, Worf. Nor
can we infer his guilt because
he did not respond.

WORF
If a man is not afraid of the
truth, he would answer.

PICARD
No. We must not let ourselves
think that. The Seventh Guarantee
is one of the most important
rights granted by the Federation.
We cannot use one of the
fundamental principles of our
Constitution and turn it against
a citizen.

Worf is struggling to understand.

WORF
Sir... the Federation does have
enemies... we must seek them
out...

PICARD
Yes... that's how it starts. But
the road from legitimate suspicion
to rampant paranoia is shorter
than we might think. Something
is wrong here, Worf... I don't
like what we have become.

The bigot admiral Satie puts him on trial and he makes another noteworthy comment.

PICARD
There is a saying... which many
of us have heard since we were
school children... "With the first
link, the chain is forged. The
first speech censured, the first
thought forbidden, the first
freedom denied -- chains us all,
irrevocably."

He's saying exactly what I feel. The older generation today are a lot like Worf, and they don't understand.

"FiveFingers" shoes

2008-08-28T15:27:00.004+02:00

I just saw the awesomest shoes! :D I want them! I need them! I covet them! I happened upon a photo of a shoe on DeviantArt and upon some research, I found the Vibram site.

The Sprint with Taupe/Putty upper, Clay bottom, size 43 male. I want them!

Weight and such

2008-08-27T13:16:00.008+02:00

It's been a loooong while since I wrote.

Anyway, me and D started dieting a month ago, and so far it's working like a charm. We found a diet called DASH that supposedly lowers blood pressure. The weird thing was that it had almost no meat and loads of carbs. We decided that just cutting down the carbs and upping the meat seemed fine. Later we found out that there are actually already modern, modified DASH models that have done just that — oh well, I guess great minds think alike. Then I came up with a table where you just cross units out after you've eaten something.

The table looks like this, and every icon means a certain amount of a certain type of food. They're all available in Swedish and English in my box, if anyone wants them. (All the images are royalty free and most were taken from Open Clipart.)

Just for fun (although D thinks I'm being very overzealous :P) I made a couple of programs (one for the computer and one for my phone) where I can calculate DASH units from nutritional info and common sense. That made me go through all of McDonald's food and calculate what each item is worth. I admit that even I thought that was a bit zealous, but then I put it in a table and the next time we want weekend munches (we save points during the week) we can just check and see how much we can eat.

Well, seeing as it seems to work (based on weighing myself almost every morning) I thought it could be nice to plot a graph of my progress. I don't want to be skinny, but getting below BMI 25 or 30 would be nice. I started an account on Fridge Graph so that I could proudly display my success. The target curve is a linear function, which doesn't quite match reality. My goal point was found using an exponential curve, and that's why it shows me being well below the line at the moment. So far I have lost 4 kg in four weeks, and D has lost 5 kg. It really is working!

I also started using Google Reader again, after months of disuse. It's an RSS reader that has a nice layout and you can collect all your feeds (such as blogger blogs, which all have feeds) in one place. That way you easily see what's new and what you have read. You even get statistics about every feed and about your reading habits. Try it — you'll like it.

Spencer

2008-06-27T17:34:00.008+02:00

Okay, so here's some unfinished short story I wrote yesterday. I figured I'd save it for posterity. Here goes:

Spencer didn't have a country. It was taken from him (and all his people) as a punishment after the war. Now they lived as citizens of other nations. However, not much time had passed, and they still felt weird about it.

Spencer was a killer; had snapped a dozen necks and sniped quite a few people. Mostly small fish, but still. The slick haircut suited him — he was a greasy guy.

One day a high ranking official of the secretly-still-existant government of the old country, sent out a courier to supply Spencer with a mission, should he wish to take it.

The courier cowered and spoke feebly. Spencer terrified him. The mission was multipart: recon the estate of one Chester J Jenkins; return at dusk to sabotage a few key installations, and then use a nano server planted during recon to shut down the security system, then sneak in and kill this Jenkins. As the courier scurried off, Spencer planned ahead in his head.

Come D-day, recon revealed a handful of armed guards, none too bright. The sabotage went without a hitch, except for one time when a broken radio had led a guard off his regular path. Spencer had solved that with a silenced pistol and the art of body disposal.

A boathouse became the entry point for the actual mission. Clad in black and witha fully kitted toolbelt, Spencer went to town on every guard one at a time. He snuck through hedgerows and scaled a trellis to a balcony. What kind of ignorant person had armed guards but a trellis leading straight to his bedroom? Jenkins was dead and Spencer out of there in a matter of seconds.

A week later another courier came to visit. This time the mission was to be carried out in a group. That wasn't Spencer's style at all, but he couldn't help but to think of the generous pay.

Later that night, they all met up at a local park in the center of town. Jacob was a large guy, 6'11" at least. His muscles bulged underneath a brown leather jacket. Heather was a redhead with a skinny neck and an affinity for martial arts. Declan was the odd-jobber of the bunch and had grown up as a thief, beggar and conman... or so he claimed.

Each of them had received a part of the mission brief, so that only combined would they know the specifics. This one was tricky. It turned out that old man Jenkins had been a military officer in charge of the enemies' special forces. This new mission entailed a long hike through a swamp among other things.

***

On the other side of the swamp lay a simple log cabin. The inside was lit by a warm fire place, and two persons were cozying up to it. One was a man in his sixties and the other a girl in her thirties. He had black hair and a plaid flanell shirt, she was a curly blonde in a red dress.

She leaned toward the table to pick up her glass; he leaned in to kiss her cheek. Just as he was about to land his moist, old lips a yell cut through the evening outside.

"YOU TWO GO AROUND THE BACK! YOU — FLASHBANG, BIG WINDOW!" The window broke and sent glass shards flying alongside a thin, green metal canister.

"BANG!" The roar was deafening and everything went black as the man and woman struggled to get out of the cabin.

Some nostalgic music

2008-06-27T17:13:00.003+02:00

I'm sorry to say that this song is in Swedish, and I can't be arsed to translate. Too bad if you don't know Swedish. It was aaaages ago since I last heard Doktor Kosmos, but about a week ago I found two of their albums in the library.

It's so amazingly great. It's kind of low-budget, so if you're musically pedantic, and crave technical perfection, this is probably not for you. Also a pet peeve of mine (and several others') is the way they use several notes for one vowel. But with Doktor Kosmos, I don't mind it.

By the way, how can you not love lyrics like:

Det är jag som är mobbaren,
var inte så jä'la ful annars blir'e mobbning,
ska'ru ha mobbning din jävel,
jag ska mobba skiten ur'e bögfetto,

bögfetto-bögfetto-bögfetto-o-o-o-o-o FETTO!

and

Men alla barnen ville dansa pop
Men snygga bruden dansa bara rock.
Jag sa: 'Den bruden var ju inget bra
Jag tror att jag funderar på att dra
härifrån.'

Alla barn på stan dom skriker
'Wo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!
Wo-o-o-o-o-o-o,
sämsta bruden i hela stan.'

In some way (I don't quite know why) many of their songs feel very summery. This made me embark on a venture to find as many summery songs I can, and make a playlist full of the classics that are cozy on the beach, at sunset, or around the barbecue. I'll also mention Mikael Wiehe's "Ska nya röster sjunga", which also has the right feel to it.

I'll possibly come back with a list at some point. Right now though, it's D's last day at work, and next week we go on vacation. That's what I look forward to.

To finish this part, I'll leave you with some English lyrics from the song "Doktor Knark is back in the town".

Doktor Knark he smiled a smile
And he say I don't like your style
Doktor Kosmos I don't like you
I'm gonna kill you too

You gonna bleed
'Cause I have a knife
You gonna plead
For your dirty life
You gonna cry
and you gonna run (ah-ha)
You gonna cry
and you gonna run (ah-ha)
You gonna cry
and you gonna run
Juan gonna shoot you with his lasergun

Project Runway (TV3)

2008-06-25T22:17:00.000+02:00

Project Runway (TV3): "TV3 - Project Runway
25.06.2008 22:00-23:00

En ny grupp designers invaderar New York och ställs inför den första nervösa
utmaningen. Monique Lhuillier är gästdomare...."

Varför ska alla vara utbildade designers och folk som redan har designat för kända modeskapare eller som själva har företag i branschen? Det är helt tvärtemot vad serien stod för. Hoppas någon av de oerfarna vinner.

Wales

2008-03-24T09:52:00.038+01:00

Before the trip

Two days ago we got back home from a vacation with my sister-in-law and her boyfriend in Wales.

...But let's backtrack a bit. Just a few days before we went on vacation, we bought us a new fish, called Marilyn.

Just remember that for later reference. The thing in front of her is a block of vacation food. She hovered in front of it constantly from the moment we put it in there.

Day one

Anyway, we left home at dinner time, went by bus, ferry, train and plane before we arrived at Manchester airport an hour late at 19:30 local time. At Kastrup and all around in Scandinavia it was snowing like crazy, but in the UK the weather was nice and spring-like. On the way we picked up a couple of Dam trolls, which we designated as travel mascots.

We were picked up by K (my sister-in-law) and A (her boyfriend) and went by car to their home in Wrexham, Wales (pictured here in bright daylight from the day after).

We arrived through a back-alley in typical British style. The houses and neighbourhoods looked exactly as I had imagined. Here's K standing in the alley.

We unpacked, fixed ourselves up a bit and met the cat, Minnie.

Then we went to a pub to meet some of our hosts' friends and have Caesar salads and vinegar fries. It was a pretty short night out, and we were really tired from the trip, so on to the next day.

Day two

On the second day, we went to Chester, England. This is an old city once destined to be the capital of the UK, but seeing as London had a more favourable position by the water, this never happened. The entirety of old Chester is enclosed within a city wall built by Romans.

Here we went around all day, looking through shops and seeing the local sights. I bought seasons one and two of Futurama and D found some Elvis books. We had lunch at a formerly Italian restaurant that was now French, and it was delicious!

When we were done, we decided to wait for A to pick us up. We waited in Starbucks, and it was my first time there. D had hot chocolate and I had a caramel frappuccino.

Later, we got home and decided to go grocery shopping at Tesco, the low-price supermarket. It was pretty big and they had Crunchies and Salt-and-Vinegar chips by the buttload.

We had KFC for dinner, which is another thing I'd never tried before. It was nice, but not as greasy as I had thought it would be.

Day three

The third day is the one where I took the most pictures; 213 in total, I think. This is where we were picked up by A's mother, who took us around Llangollen (where A grew up). This was the cross-country tour, where we really got to see the landscape.

This is the kind of view prevalent in Wales, at least in the Llangollen area. We stopped in several places to take pictures. In the background, on the hill, you can see castle Dinas Brân, where I climbed later on. The landscape was dotted with that for which Wales is internationally known, sheep.

When we arrived at the foot of the Dinas Brân hill, the wussies stayed in the car.

I, on the other hand, partly ran and partly inched my way up to the castle. It was the single most out-of-breath moment of my life so far.

I found a micro cache on my way down the hill. It was hidden at the base of a tree. Sadly the geocoin I had decided to stash somewhere in Wales didn't fit and I never had the opportunity to find another cache.

I was pretty beat when I got to the car, and we drove to a high-altitude biker restaurant called Ponderosa and had fish-and-chips. We went looking around a souvenir shop and D got a Betty Boop keyring. Everybody knows Betty Boop is very Welsh.

Here's a picture of D and myself looking smug. Or maybe it's just me who's looking smug.

We went on to an abbey called Valle Crucis, which had an impressively gothic look.

Because of the rumors about ghosts haunting the abbey, D and K tried to look really scared, thinking the ghosts might spare them.

We were spared, and as we were leaving we got a chance to snap a few shots of a couple of squirrels. They look so cute. Here's a picture of one of them — the leader, I think.

We still had a bit more to look at, so we went to the Pontcysyllte aqueduct where you could rent camper-style canal boats to travel across the aqueduct and continue along the canal.

Then we went into the center of Llangollen to look at some souvenirs and the river Dee. We went home and had a curry (also a very British thing we had never tried before). Then we went to bed.

Day four

K had to work this day, and so she gave D and me a handcrafted map of Wrexham with all the good shops listed. We went out and visited these places; D found quite a few items of clothing and CDs and I got a movie and blank DVDs (aren't I fun?). It was raining all day, and we got cold and wet. Here's a picture from Hope street.

We had lunch at a restaurant called One to Five, where D had a salad and I had a chili dog. We hung out at a coffee shop for a while, and then we went over to Tesco, where K and A picked us up. We went home and K made us nachos for dinner.

Day five

On the last day, we had brunch. It was a traditional British fry-up with scrambled eggs, smilies (hash browns), sausages, bacon, baked beans, toast, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, coffee and orange juice.

We had a lie-in and watched almost the entire first season of American Dad on DVD.

In the evening we went to an American-Italian restaurant called Frankie and Benny's, where we had drinks and pizza and what-have-you.

Day six

This was a really short day, as we got up at 06:00 and started travelling straight away. I was delighted to realize I could take pictures from the plane. I got a few beauties.

When we got home, we ordered pizza and rested. Upon looking in on the fishes, we came to a terrible realization. The fish mentioned at the start of the post, Marilyn, remained only as a skeleton! The other fish had eaten her! She probably got an overdose of vitamins from the vacation food.

We spent the day watching Futurama and chilling. That's it, in a nut-shell. Over-and-out.

Lots of stuff...

2008-02-16T22:50:00.010+01:00

Hello. It's been a while. I've had loads of stuff happen lately. Let's start with the sad news: Moe died a while ago. He probably had a parasite infection or something, as he sped around frantically, then just stopped and was floating when we found him in the morning. Also regarding the aquarium, we cleaned the whole thing out, getting rid of the old gravel and putting in blasting sand instead. Now everything looks nice and clean and the water's not milky anymore. Moe would've liked it.

I had my birthday two weeks ago tomorrow. I got loads of great stuff, and I'm going to list it all here in order of giver.

Ditte:: An electric coffee grinder; Isaac Asimov: The Caves of Steel; Isaac Asimov: The Naked Sun; Isaac Asimov: The Robots of Dawn
My parents:: A 250GB portable harddrive (FreeAgent Desktop); A 4GB USB stick (Kingston DataTraveler); Boss Selection Deo Stick; Dark Messiah
Erik:: A potted plant
Ditte's parents:: A pocket watch
Katrine & Aled:: Isaac Asimov: The Complete Robot
My grandparents:: Money (used to buy an outfit, as seen below); Laundry baskets

I was very happy with the gifts (as always) and I love everyone for giving me them.

A couple of days ago was Valentine's day. We don't celebrate that day, as a kind of protest to the commercial bullshit gimmick day that it really is. So instead we get eachother stuff in the days upto and/or after Valentine's day. This year I got a really, really nice wrist watch from D. As she couldn't really come up with something to wish for, I gave her a necklace here, some earrings there, and a few little things whenever we happened to pass something she liked.

Yesterday, we went out for a stroll. We were supposed to go to Elsinore, but decided against it on account of the ferry fee and the cold weather. So instead we ventured into Helsingborg city. We had lovely kebab platters at Bomb and then we went through the main shopping street, stopping in at H&M to have a look. We ended up getting me an entire outfit with a ska (or punk) theme. This outfit included a hat, a belt, a shirt and a vest. I thought of it as my grandparents giving me the shirt and vest, and I got the hat and belt cheap anyway, so it didn't feel spendy.

That's all folks. Så får I ikke mere for den 25 øre. I'm done for this time. See you around.

That Cursed Book and The Rediscovery of Disturbed

2008-01-28T12:24:00.000+01:00

Let me just put that in reverse order. The rediscovery of Disturbed did indeed happen just a few moments ago, on my way home. Listen to “The Game” and you'll see why I love them. Can't find any video though, so you'll just have to google yourself.

Anyway, I've been searching for a book called “Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach 2 ed.” for quite some time now. Quite a dilemma was the fact that it cost anything from 600 SEK to 900 SEK (approx. 80 - 130 USD) and that it wasn't available in any public library.

I had then, during the weekend, decided that I was going to buy the darned thing, seeing as I had to use it for a hand-in. Taking my bike down to the book store, I find the book isn't there, even though they claim they have all student literature that is being used in the present term. The lady behind the counter kindly told me that it'd take at least two days for the book to get here if I ordered it now, for 700 SEK, and that as long as it wasn't in the public library I wouldn't find it anywhere else in town.

I was crushed, but didn't want to order the thing just yet — I needed it today, damn it — so I checked two more book stores without results, and I realized I'd either have to get my ass to Lund (which would cost approx. 200 SEK in gas) to either buy the book in time before the school book store (KFS) closed or hope it was available in the school library.

All of a sudden a spark flickered in the back of my head. I could go down to Campus Helsingborg, and see if they didn't have a KFS shop there. As I drew nearer the place, I crossed in front of the “tingshus” (~ court house) and across the bridge where a couple of people (students or TV people I don't know) were filming somebody. Just as I passed, they swung the camera my way. I tried to duck though, so if you happen to see me on TV looking like a complete ass, that's why.

I cruised around the building, and didn't find any KFS (I now know that's because they only exist in Lund and Malmö) and so I took one last chance and entered the campus itself, to try and find a possible KFS indoors. I found a sign, but without mention of KFS, and so I scanned it further on and found an antry saying “library”.

I thought to myself that the book couldn't possibly be in there, but I was drawn there anyway. Searching through the library computer I found the book, and to my disappointment it existed only in Lund. As a complete gamble, I clicked the second entry in the list. It turned out to be the same book, only available in Helsingborg, in the very same library where I was standing!

I was confused, and didn't know whether my LTH library card would work, but I found the book and grabbed it. Being even luckier, I noticed a self service checkout machine, and went over there. I slowly put my card into the slot, and as of yet nothing was beeping doomsdaylike. I scanned the book, the machine pinged and I got my receipt. I thought to myself: “Yes! That buys me a month before I have to buy the book, aren't I lucky?”. Just then I glanced at the receipt and noticed that I actually had the book until late July.

I was virtually boiling with exuberance, and clutching the thumbed tome under my arm, I ran to my bike, jumped on, and pedalled like never before. Now here I am, one book richer and no money shorter. I rock. Full stop.

Slösurfa

2008-01-23T10:31:00.000+01:00

After hearing James Blunt singing Goodbye My Lover on the radio on my way home from school, I'm absolutely convinced that this man should not be allowed to sing. The torture I had to endure, as he takes lyrics that are in themselves somewhat decent, and massacres them, is not of this world. I imagine he's not had time to come up with a melody that fits all the syllables in a good way, so instead he stutters them out like a submachine gun, while his voice reaches ever higher pitch. I simply cant stand it. You can even hear him revving up, after a relatively calm chorus, into the verse which is performed at mach 3. Maybe he should keep it textual, like a poet. At least don't sing like that, James, please?

Sorry. The rant's over now.

I have been unable to find a proper English term for the Swedish “slösurfa”, but it involves surfing the net for no other purpose than wasting time. Oftentimes one can get quite a lot out of this.

I stumbled upon a place called Uncyclopedia. Though I've seen it before, I've never really read it. One can find gems such as this:

“Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
In Soviet Russia
Poem writes YOU!!”

Source: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Russian_reversal_(joke), 2008-01-23

or more complete decriptions of things, like this:

“Babies (also known as behbehs in some areas of Boston) are small humans, designed by God in his own image. They are the products of birth, which, research shows, stings a little. Babies have exactly the same features as adult human beings, but are currently approximately half the size. If they don’t have the same features as a fully grown human, they tend to cause worry. Due to their extremely small size and abundance, babies are often used as ammunition and food, also commonly used by the poor as baby food.”

Source: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Baby, 2008-01-23

but you can also find articles on just about anything. Every page seems to be graced with a fake Oscar Wilde quote, and everybody invents the most imaginative and entertaining lies I've read in a long time.

In my quest for knowledge, I also found quite a few examples of American creationists. I saw some of their promo vids, and let me tell you, those science believing, normal Americans don't have an easy time. I would have constantly boiling blood if I'd have to put up with the crap they spew. Just search for creationism on youtube — you'll find lots to entertain (or agitate) you.

Bye for now. It's my bedtime.

The Evil Dream

2008-01-20T10:47:00.000+01:00

I had a really evil dream tonight. I dreamt that D, the love of my life, told me that we should take a break. Since she's the one that said it, I accepted — hesitantly, but still. What else could I do. She wanted us to date other people. I don't really recall the guy she had in mind, but for some weird reason I'd been paired up with a guy (yes, a guy) from elementary school. He was an arab guy with a very feminine demeanor. I hated it, I absolutely hated it, but somehow he'd been selected for me, and I was stuck with it.

You should know that the general feeling that was there all along was hopelessness. I felt ther was nothing I could do, and that if I wasn't with D, then what the hell did I care anyway?

We went on a double date at a movie theatre, to see some movie that was (as things so often are in dreams) an amalgam of several different stories and movies. One of them featured the characters from Shrek, except for some reason Eddie Murphy had decided he wouldn't participate anymore, and rather than switch the voice actor, the movie company had cut out the part of Donkey entirely. As I know he's D's favorite, I knew she must be disappointed. However, I couldn't tell her anything, since she was sitting in the front rows, and I was in the back.

Suddenly toward the end of the movie, I noticed Donkey popping up for a brief moment on the screen. I immediately glanced over at D, only to see that she was busy making out with her new guy. I tried to make little noises, like grunts, to make her react and maybe see just a glimpse of Donkey, but I don't recall that she did.

Afterwards we went outside and went our separate ways. I was talking to my arab guy, and he was asking me about the movie, and as he was talking I just realized that I hadn't been following it at all. I'd missed most of it, trying to look at D. But I tried to be polite and make small talk anyway.

Some time after, D and I was visiting her parents, because as a cruel side point, they knew nothing about our separation. No one did. We had to sit there and be quiet about it, and all along I wanted to scream that I had been hurt, and cast aside. All of a sudden, I couldn't take it anymore, and I fell around D's neck and I bawled my eyes out. She started to cry too, and even though we didn't say anything, we both knew that this was wrong — we were always ment to be together, and that we should. Somehow I just knew that everything was going to be fine again, as the dream ended in mid-bawl, and I woke up to the alarm clock's incessant beeping.

I guess I just want to say what an immense feeling it is, to think you've lost something as large as what we have. It's unfathomable. I mean, I was just apathetic about it. It was so extremely out there, it couldn't even be true — if it was, I might just as well be lost forever, and just vegetate for the rest of my life.

The main point being: I'm so in love, and it'll never quit. Never. I love you, D!

Fragment 2

2008-01-19T23:37:00.000+01:00

The dusty road waned before his eyes. Everything flickered. Why did it have to flicker so? There was not a sound either. Nothing could be heard, at least not through his ears. He had been shot through the stomach with a high-velocity plasmic charge — a green one. Once upon a time, he would have welcomed a chance to die a warrior's glorious death, but not anymore. He, David Gent, age 32, had a family now.

Screaming in pain, he still couldn't hear a thing. He took a deep breath and collected all of his energy in order to stand up. Staggering, he managed to dip into the trench a few yards away, and a medic was over him immediately. David shut his eyes, thereby surrendering completely. He hadn't given up — he just trusted the medic with his life, that's all.

His pain diminishing, he started to slip out of conciousness. He began feeling less and less, until he was completely numb. Everything was black. Then, a voice piped up.
“How are you feeling, baby?” The voice was that of either a woman or a child, but he couldn't recognize it. It seemed to wobble in both volume and pitch.
“Who are you? I don't feel anything.” David answered.
“Take it easy. Everything is as it should be. You'll be fine.”

[I'm gonna end abruptly here, and finish another day. I'm too tired to write.]

Fish

2008-01-19T13:53:00.000+01:00

Here are some shots of the new fish we got yesterday. As of right now, their names are as follows:

Goldfish: Moe, Paulie
Oranda: Baby, Flo / Mr. Miagy
Blackmoor: Elvis, Neo
Catfish: Leo, Catfish #2

The last one is due for naming pretty soon. The little buggers just wont stay still (except for the catfish) and so are very difficult to get shots of. However, we succeeded with some of them, so this is what we've got so far.

This is Baby, eating part of a plant. Bad Baby, that's not food! The lurker is either Neo or Elvis.

Catfish #2 is being vewy, vewy quiet. You see, he's hunting wabbits!

Neo is looking curious.

Neo, in all his glory. Very graceful. Moe lurks underneath.

Another one of Neo (yes, he's my favorite) and it's kind of blurry, but it's good enough.

That's it for now. I should get my ass into the shower, the weather's great for going outside today — for once. See you!

Something or other

2008-01-16T20:42:00.000+01:00

So — I guess I didn't get all the writing out of my system earlier today. I feel an itch to be creative, and I tried drawing both on the computer and traditionally — it didn't work. The end result was some doodles and a very bad non-save-worthy highrise complex.

“If you want to play it like a game
Well, come on, come on, let's play
'Cause I'd rather waste my life pretending
Than have to forget you for one whole minute

They taped over your mouth
Scribbled out the truth with their lies
Your little spies”

Excerpt from Crushcrushcrush by Paramore

That's one of the best tracks from “Riot” in my opinion. I've been listening to the whole album on repeat today, actually. It was quite soothing, and I didn't even realize it at first.

Tomorrow, I start school again after being on christmas leave. I don't want to. Well, maybe I do — at least part of me — since I'm going to take “Applied AI”, which is very interesting. One of the assignments is a checkers bot, and another concerns neural nets. That's top notch stuff, I tellz ya.

We bought ourselves a whole case of Pepsi Max and we've been sinners for the day. Otherwise, we've managed fine not to eat candy and drink soda, but instead replace that with fruit, water and mixed nuts. Oh yeah, we're the bomb.

Apparently Facebook frowns upon people who use private messages to actually talk in private. They seem to think that's not the intended use of that function. Well, if you wanted to send messages every now and again no more often than a few times a day, wouldn't you rather send an e-mail? They're just stupid. And also, I haven't heard any more lately about the stuff that was huge news a while back with them owning your content as soon as you upload it, and can use it for whatever they like. That's just sick.

And now for something completely different... Yum, pumpkin seeds.

I don't really know what to write now. The thing is, I want to write. It's a dilemma, and it forces me into some kind of verbal diarrhea. I'm getting more and more used to the idea of writing without purpose though, and that's welcome. It's something I've always wanted to be able to do — to just sit down and blabber on about complete nonsense like I was talking, because then I'll get better at it... hopefully.

I should have an embed somewhere around here — you're supposed to have embeds in blogs. Hold on, I'll find something...

Have this. It's the video for the song I quoted above; how's that for a connection? Eh? Eh?

I'm going to stop now and try to help D make a rock 'n' roll butterfly wallpaper for her blog. I'll see you around. Don't let the bed bugs bite, if indeed it's past your bedtime.

Fragments

2008-01-16T12:30:00.000+01:00

I'm listening to Paramore. Bought the new album, “Riot!” for D. It's a really good album. We've been listening to track 4 “Misery Business” for quite a while, but today the entire album finally arrived along with a DVD of “Donnie Brasco” — forget about it. I'm anxious to hand it over to her as soon as she comes home.

Yesterday went by without a fuss. We changed the generator (or rather my dad changed it) for my car, so now the bastard is back up and running. The day before that, we went to the movies. On the way over there, we changed sides of the road to avoid a disgusting, hawking, phlegmy, old man only to see him throw up in mid-walk in the middle of the street and continuing along as if nothing had happened. Yuck! Anyway, we got to the cinema, sat down and saw “P.S. I Love You”. It was a brilliant movie, and D and all the other women in there were crying like crazy.

Presently, I'm doing laundry. Hehe, I like “presently”, it's so '50s like. I'm going to have to take a break to go flip some laundry that's drying down in the basement. ... Well, this wasn't very interesting. I should come up with something better until I get back. See you in fifteen minutes.

... There, I'm back. Okay, so it wasn't fifteen minutes to you, but to me it was. Almost. I had an idea in the elevator — I could do some prose in my blog. I don't necessarily have to write just prose, the way I've tried before, but if I could include at least a snippet every now and again, it could possibly be quite interesting. So let me introduce you to the characters as a start. This will
be the first episode of “Menarest”.

Cast of scenes:
Menarest - Sprawling city with a cyber-punk air.

Cast of characters:
Malika - Soulless, feminine automaton that kills for money.
Swig - Bearded, lean man with an affinity for bright fedora hats and a religious relationship to technology.

Fragment One:
What looked like eighteen or twenty leopardskin patterned motorbikes stormed in from the north.
Malika: “Looks like The Brethren.”
Swig: “Sure, what else is new? Could you hand me the little packet on the back of my satchel?” Malika snapped the string holding the packet in place, and handed the fabric-clad object to Swig, who unwrapped it carefully to reveal a reddish, metallic piece. Swig looked down upon it, closed his eyes and started speaking soft words, a prayer to the inherent spirit of the subnuclear bomb he held in his hand. Then he threw it into the midst of the motorbikes, that had drawn closer. Seven of the bikers scattered like torn husks, limp and pliant, their bikes skidding away. The rest of them stepped on the breaks. They were trying to turn around when Malika casually walked up to one of them and snapped his neck as were it a twig.
Malika: “They're so beneath us.”
Swig: “Don't be so hasty. You'd be a fool to underestimate them.”
Malika: “Oh, don't sound so cliché!”
Swig: “Shut up, you piece of shit machine.”
Malika: “Haha, you're so in love with me.” She had worked her way through the staggering bikers killing each one in a more imaginative way than the last. There were two left now, and they'd gotten turned around and presently sped off.
Swig: “Adinkty”. Swig lowered his head and made a sign with his fingers in the palm of his hand.
Malika: “You have to stop worshipping non-existing entities. It's not healthy.”
Swig: “You're a bot. You can't possibly understand the great things of...”
Malika: “Oh, please! If anyone should know, it ought to be me. I'm all machine, remember. I can assure you, no entity of greater importance inhabits my innards.”
Swig: “Albeit your spirit surely can't be very interesting, my entire existence is based on it being there — being in every machine. I will pray for you tonight, friend.”
Malika: “Suit yourself, weirdo.” They walked on in silence, kicking a few bodies and bikes just for the hell of it. The Brethren rarely came straight up to them. This was a new approach. They'd have to think about that.

There, that's that. The next time I write, you'll get fragment two, which might or might not pertain to the same time frame, planet or characters. With this I leave you. And let me just say, daaaamn I'm filled up with Camembert. I never want to eat again. So long!

Intro

2008-01-13T12:33:00.000+01:00

All right. So, I'm going to try starting up a new blog... Again. This time it'll just be about anything, and everything — some private stuff and hopefully lots of rantings and ravings about all kinds of stuff that's crossed my mind lately.

Living on the top floor of an eight storey building makes fireworks explode right at our level. Many times have I been just about to fall asleep when I've been shook by a festive detonation. Even on ground level, the booms echo between the buildings, so everything is amplified. New Year's Eve was almost two weeks ago — when will they learn?

Anyway — here's a view of the stroke of midnight at New Year's Eve, as seen from our balcony by me, my fiancée, (D) and her parents.

Last weekend I finally found the perfect cupboard for placing an aquarium on top of. We've been looking for one for ages, and haven't wanted to buy an aquarium until we had the perfect piece of furniture for it. So this was a happy event, and after assembling the cupboard on Sunday, we went to the petshop last Monday and aquired an aquarium. 60 litres. Then on Wednesday, after the tank had gotten to develop the right bacteria and temperature and stuff, we bought two fish — Paulie and Moe, as seen below. They are named thus, because D thought it looked like one of them was constantly saying "Moe, Moe, Moe..." and Paulie just went well with Moe.

My romance levels have dropped recently. Or should I say, they've been constantly low for quite a while. A couple of years ago, having just entered a relationship, there was loads of kissing (frenchy style) and flowers and cuddling for hours on end. Now it's become more of a co-existence. Don't take this the wrong way, it's not like the romance is gone — not at all — it's just that the display of the same has suffered a decrease.

I have to kick myself a little bit for not doing all I should, and I promise I will try harder. I've always had a really, really tough time writing about myself. I can write prose, fiction easy as pie, because then everything relates to a character in some way, and not to myself. I can rarely describe my feelings in words, but suffice it to say, I don't think I could be a complete man (boy, guy, nerd, whatever) without my absolute darling of a fiancée. She is indeed what makes it all worthwhile.

Last night, I couldn't sleep and turned to D for comfort. Even through her snoring and very deep sleep, she took my hand with one of hers, and stroked my hair with the other one — while asleep!

Love is knowing that you'll stick together forever through everything. It's getting a blanket and fuzzy socks when your partner is cold. It's finding eachother's favorite nuts in a snack mix. It's making scrambled eggs for breakfast even though you can't eat it yourself. It's fetching a painkiller for your partner when headache strikes. It's holding hands the entire time, wherever you go.

That being said, D deserves more than that, and I hope every part of her — from her dark, painstakingly flattened hair, her large, dark eyes and her cute little nose to her tiny little toes can see this for what it is — an attempt to make amends, by making these things public. It is, for me, a big step and a difficult one. I love you, D, with all of my heart.

Now I think I should be off to get some dinner and some light bulbs for our now-gloomy hallway. And possibly, just possibly, some roses.