So I added this guy who wanted some help with Blender to my messenger contact list yesterday. He seemed a decent enough person... but then I woke up at six this morning to a screen filled with raving children throwing insults at each other. They of course proceeded to try to insult me (I say try, because I can't say that I really feel properly insulted by little ones implying that I'm homosexual... in somewhat ruder terms) and only succeeding in showing how far up their own asses they could shove their heads. Lovely thing to wake up to, wouldn't you say?
Guess he didn't want any more help. ^^

Listening to: Nathalie - Heartbeat (there's something strangely appealing in the combination of spatty eurodisco and sleep deprived befuddlement)

If you want to contact me in the next few days... give up ^^ I'll be where the cellphones don't reach and the internet isn't even a distant rumor. Back sometime early next week.

Listening to: Jefferson Airplane - Embryonic Journey

I just watched Kill the Last Geisha as well as all the extra material and, damn it, I miss you guys!
Anyways, Swedish summer weather is being its usual unpredictable self. We had probably about 30-40 mm of rain today, it was absolutely pouring for long periods with lighter rain in between, then it turned bright and sunny in the evening. Because of the weather I never went hiking last week, but now on Thursday I'll finally be going. I don't care about the weather any more, I'll just be out for 2-3 days anyway.
And I promised some art, didn't I? Here's my latest finished piece. Spent a lot of time on this one, but it was worth it. Gave it to my mother on her birthday today.

Listening to: Death in Vegas - Soul Auctioneer (The Contino Sessions album has been played a lot lately.)

鮫肌男と桃尻女, a delightful action comedy full of dysfunctional weirdo characters. Well worth seeing, but looking for any deeper messages in it will probably be fruitless.

I don't really have much to say, just thought it was time to write something ;). Would post some stuff I've drawn, but I'm having trouble uploading to my webspace (again). You'll just have to wait until next time, I know you can do it if you really try. I'm finally making a serious try with actual paper and pens again. There's a satisfaction in creating a unique original drawing that I just don't get when working with digital media.

Thanks for the game info Norm, appreciate it.

Oh, and how about a book tip? Greg Bear's Blood Music, science fiction at its best. Real science fiction, not the space battle, homing laser crap. In fact, rather than exploring the tired old space scenarios Bear looks the opposite way: inwards. Read the short story. There's a novel length one too, but the short introduces the idea and develops it enough to make it interesting. I don't know why I came to think of this story today, I read it about ten years or so ago but it's one of those stories that've left a lasting impression.

Does the background of this blog usually load for you? Quite often it doesn't for me, so I guess I should change the design to something that's a little easier to read without it. Maybe I'll pick a colour scheme that's not quite as taxing on the eyes while I'm at it... I think I may have fixed the non-loading issue, tell me if it works.

Listening to: Magic Slim and the Teardrops - Scuffling

I don't know. At least I've helped clean out the garage so I've not really wasted the day. Did take the time to draw (or rather finish drawing) this to practice some inking and play with hatching. The original looks better, I don't have a scanner on hand so I settled for a photo.

Listening to: Love - Can't Explain

I never really had one before, nothing more than glorified stubble at least. Something rather obvious that I just hadn't thought about is that a beard, just like your hair, dries slower than your face. Nothing strange there except it feels really weird.

And now to something completely different: How many of you play World of Warcraft? I've been considering getting a game (for the first time in years) and this seems to be what most people play at the moment. Also would I, being in Europe, have to play on different servers than those of you in America or Asia?

Listening to: System of a Down - Aerials

Never went out with the boat since the weather, which had been perfect for two weeks, decided to change for the worse. Being caught out in a thunderstorm in an open boat isn't much fun.
So I've stayed home and come up with other ways to waste my time. Like trying to read through Markus' manga collection... or at least a book or two (my pda is finally getting some use again for looking up kanji). And of course I've been sitting in front of the computer quite a lot. At least I've got something to show for it:
A model of the human hand skeleton, rigged and ready for animation:
picture 1, picture 2
short video(58 kB, XviD)
A model of a flying machine that I started on years ago and finally finished: picture

My plans for going up to the mountains for some hiking next week haven't changed.

Listening to: Deep Purple - Space Truckin'

Biked 90 km out to Östhammar today with dad (if by some strange chance any reader of this knows enough of Upland's geography to point out that the distance between Uppsala and Östhammar is only 70 km I'll be happy to point out that the shortest road isn't much fun to bike on being as it is fairly narrow with lots of traffic). It was nice, though at 30 degrees it was a bit hotter than I might have liked but I shouldn't complain about the weather since there at least was no wind. Went for a swim and had dinner with my uncle in Östhammar before I caught the bus back home.
I'll go back there on Wednesday or Thursday to take a small boat out to Örskär (small island at the north end of the archipelago), stay there for the night at the hostel before going back to Östhammar and taking my bike back home. It'll be fun, would be more fun if I'd manage to drag somebody along for company but all my friends have left town and my brothers have other plans. Oh well, can't complain ^^

Listening to: Free - Mourning Sad Morning

That title has nothing to do with anything, it's the only line I can remember from a song my brother used to play in the car and it's stuck on repeat in my head right now.
I didn't get my time or money back, but at least I got a receipt for one free rental movie sometime.
I just watched Robot Carnival, a collection of short animated films with/about robots. They're all good I think, though it gets a little long with little or no plot. My favorite is the last one Chicken Man and Red Head and I also really like the starting and ending animations.

Listening to: A spoken word novelty song backed by a generic techno track that sounds kind of like Enya, but without the edge ^^

I don't expect much when renting a movie this cheap. It's ok if the service is lousy, I don't mind if they're outright rude to me. But I do expect that the disc is in good enough condition to actually play!
Halfway into my second movie about a blind girl for the night (and this one knows kung fu and gets turned on after killing a dozen or so soldiers) it stutters and stops right as she's about to be skewered on nasty looking bamboo stakes...

I want my time and money back.

Listening to: King Crimson - Starless and Bible Black

I've had a perfectly nice birthday.
I got the first presents the day before yesterday from my older brother (a pocket towel for hiking) who's down in Nice now and from Kana (a Dalí memory game) who's gone to Ireland.
Today I was woken... well I had to run back to bed to let them wake me... by my mother and my younger brother and his girlfriend. There was sandwiches and strawberry cake for breakfast and I got a teeshirt (with elephant silhouettes and the text "extinct is forever") and a seashell keyring from my brother and his girlfriend and a very nice Italian black leather jacket from my parents.
Nothing really special otherwise today except I've biked with a whole bunch of petunias (eleven to be exact), which isn't something I do very often. Something else I don't do very often is rent movies, but they have a summer offer up at Folkes so it's only 10 kr (maybe 1.2 - 1.3 $). So I'm watching The Village and Flying Daggers tonight.
Oh, and I got a book at dinner from brother/brother's gf. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig. More about that after I read it. I just have to finish Iain M Banks' Against a Dark Background first (again, I read it once years ago but it's still good).
It's strawberry season by the way ^^

Listening to: The Village menu screen music

... I'll be back in decent shape in notime.
Went biking yesterday for the first time in awhile (I mean, biking just for the sake of biking, not going somewhere), just for exercise really so I went quite fast and didn't bother to really look around much. Did about 60 km on mixed roads (ranging from narrow dirt tracks and gravel roads to wide bike paths next to major roads).
Today I went biking with Kana, this time just for sightseeing. We went mindboggingly slow, but managed to cover over 50 km. And got to see alot of the beautiful countryside around Uppsala and numerous rune stones and medieval churches as well as a 15th century castle. And of course there was picnics with chicken salad and hand carved chop sticks (I forgot to bring forks and had to improvise) and melons and iced tea. Weather was perfect (sunny enough that my arms are slightly burned), fields were in bloom, all was good. No biking tomorrow though, my ass is feeling well and truly sat upon.

Listening to: Das Bandt - How to Save my Soul

It's 9:30 in the morning and I'm awake. Normally this would be a good thing, I tend to sleep much too late during holidays. The problem is that I'm still awake... as in I haven't gone to bed yet. Going over to a friend for lunch at 11 so I don't think I'll sleep anytime soon.
The reason for this is that the deadline for an art contest I wanted to enter was at midnight... US pacific time. So of course I sat up 'til 8 and drew my sketchy little entry. It's not all that good, but since it's in a style I've never tried before I'm pretty happy with it (would probably be happier still if I'd had another hour or two before the deadline to polish it a bit). The topic was "School's Out" and here's my entry.

Listening to: The Pillows - Hybrid Rainbow