Weblog | I don't like the word blog, it's ugly. Anyway, new content happens here. (Swedish dito)

About me and the site | Twenty-something male who likes text. Obsessed with things such as books, reality, communication, and one or two tv-shows.

Archives | Things written here since... well, 2001. Some of it is good, some is utter shait.

Books | Books read, not books written. So far I've struggled to maintain unpublished.

Photo | I like my camera and it likes me.

Links | Outwards, away, flee.

e-mail | J. Nicklas Andersson

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The mirror

So, my third addition to the Mirror Project has been accepted. Now in hindsight, I think I should have put the focus on the reflected face in the second mirror and have the one in the first obscured.

Please, don’t search for the other two, they’re rather bad. Unlike the picture that so far only resides on my laptop, those two are simple and uncomplicated — well, almost anyway.

Something wonderful

Now this is scary. Tomorrow the 31th December, the last day of this year, something wonderful is going to happen. No, it has nothing to do with the new year. Sod the new year. That day only exists to eat Tacos according to the ancient traditions.

No, tomorrow afternoon TV2 here in sweden, at 16:00 sharp, they’ll show the first part of the Gormenghast mini-series. If I catch anyone not watching, I’ll be very sad and don’t know what I’ll do. I mean, it got Christopher Lee in it for christ sake. Sure, it’s not perfect but that doesn’t matter really. Nothing is perfect. Nothing at all (with the exception of the Gormenghast books of course).

A year in summary

Book: Declare by Tim Powers, all hands down. There is no competition at all really. A shame it wasn’t on the Hugo-ballot.
Movie: Shrek. I haven’t seen The Other One yet and Terry Gilliam didn’t finish one.
Entry: People and how to deal with them.
Comment on an entry: on this entry.
CD-record: The Flash Girls Play Each Morning Wild Queen, in lack of actually hearing Curve’s the Gift even once.
Bizarre idea: My yet to be mobilised plan of doing a Alien on Ice - The Musical for Broadway (featuring William Shatner in a bigger wig than usual as Ripley).
Saddest RIP: Harry Secombe of the Goon Show-fame.
Fun Person IRL: Robert Rankin.
Worst Disaster: The time-outs I get from Bookshop.co.uk which forces me to use Amazon.co.uk instead.

Have Power, Will Write

For a brief moment, the Dreamcast stopped spinning and the punches on the tv-screen disapeared as it shut down. The entire house, as well as the rest of the town, darknened and the power was gone. Now, what to do when there is a powerdrain and nothing in what we call the civilised world no longer works?

I simply don’t know. I, just and failry simple, don’t know. I’ve baught the myth of electricity to such a degree that I can’t imagine what to do without it. In oirder to “cure” myself I could spend a few days in a cabin out in the woods, but either I’d be etaen alive by the Evil Force or I’d go complete and utter bonkers. Besides, I would sneeze to death if I did this in the summer. The winter is right off, as I would freeze my ears into ice-cubes.

Fantastic Metropolis

I hadn’t noticed Fantastic Metropolis before, which probably makes me the last person on earth to do so. However, at first glance it seems to be a rather interesting webzine. They apparently intendto publish a short story (or something else) by China Miéville.

But in the meantime, they have short stories by John Sladek and Patrick O’Leary, an essay by David Langford, another by Bruce Sterling which is all good enough for me.

Oh, and they had one essay by Michael Moorcock about Mervyn Peake too. (You didn’t see that one coming from miles away, did you?)

Deletion

My wrist — the left one — hurts since the get-rid-of-the-damn-snow-incident, or grotdsi for short, earlier today. I also struggle with producing something worthwhile, but there seem to be little use even trying right now.

I wrote a long piece about the book amongst books but I erased every word of it. Somehow the recent fantasy book turned into a moving picture kept sneaking into it, and really, Gormenghast is something completly different and shouldn’t, in my totally arrogant opinion, be compared to the other author’s minor work. But if I know myself well enough, I’ll probably pick it up and have another go soon.

Genetics, schmetics

I have nothing in common with most of my relatives except genetics. They don’t have the same interests, even marginally, and their taste in music — let’s not even go into that right now. I might be a bit autistic, because I just realised that I don’t really know how to relate and behave with them at all. I can, mostly, just sit back and listen.

These are the people I’ve meet almost every week for my first sixteen years of existence. Perhaps it started then, when I saw them less often, but I don’t think so. It happened later, I don’t know when and I don’t think you can pinpoint change to a timeframe like that. It happens in small bits, constantly and unmerciful things attach and detach to the core of personality — or if one like to put it that way: soul.

When I threw away the values of my family, those that had persisted in generations, the walls were built and some kind of barbed wire began to grow in the grass. My choices were, and are still a couple of years later, questioned because I simply don’t fall into their party line. I hope I never will, life would become so much more boring if I do.

The Second Baker Theory

I don’t think many care about this byut I do, so there. In the “Arc of Infinity”-story arch, right at the beginning of Dr Who’s 20th season, Colin Baker has a small role as the chief in command over the Gallifreyian guards. My mind boggled a bit when I realised this.

This means that when the Doctor regenerat in the end of the 21st season, his mind takes a rather arrogant and selfish personality, which causes his body to take the form of the most arrogant and selfish person he has meet. Well, that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.

It's only a bear

I wish I had a permanent connection instead of this crappy modem. If I did, I’d do my best to beat that high score at The Prime Number Shitting Bear. And they said innovation was dead. Pfhht!

There was an accident

I burnt my hand today. Burnt it on a string of spagettios. At first it stung and then it got worse. It’s disfigured, scarred and ugly. I recon small children will scream when they see me, point at my hand and run away with tear-soaked cheeks. They will be traumatised and afraid to walk outside the door, afraid of the horrible monster that lurks out there.

Panic, raw and unjust, will ensure when my hideous claw is shown, on purpose I might add because that’s the kind of guy I am, in public. They will point and stare, unable to hide their disgust.

Well. Almost anyway.

(I wonder which of the four food groups spagettios actually belong to: salt, sugar, caffeine, or beer?)

Not my cup of tea

I got this spam the other day, and I don’t know if it really is a spam or simply just a hoax. It does seem a bit strange, as the subject were “Proven Wrinkle Reduction”, and wrinkle reduction were the worst benefits of the dubious substance.

1.Body Fat Loss 82% improvement.
2.Wrinkle Reduction 61% improvement.
3.Energy Level 84% improvement.
4.Muscle Strength 88% improvement.
5.Sexual Potency 75% improvement.
6.Emotional Stability 67% improvement.
7.Memory 62% improvement.

From these benefits, it is my belief that this is just some sort of Viagra, Prozac, L’Oreal, amphetamine and diet pill voodoo-drink that possibly even can wake the dead.

It is white outside...

...and I feel like crap.

Snow. I snow everywhere as I look out through the windows. Right now, I hate it and wish it could just go away. The main problem isn’t the snow, not really. It is the fact that is must be so damn cold. And soon the rain will come and then one sits here, surrounded by something that looks as if it were pulp straight from a paper mill. You get wet as the boots wont protect the feet any longer and then the cold comes, wipes the colours away while at the same time everything smells damp.

If I hear just one person say thing like “oh, but it’s so nice with snow on Christmas day” I’m going to snap. In other places in the world people have lived without snow their entire lives, and they get on fine. Christmas has nothing to do with snow, it is all about commerce, green trees that rot inside the living room, food en masse and relatives you don’t want to meet.

It's damn cold

Right now, there is a little bit of snow on the ground and this is how I feel:

Downtime

So, the host had their connection severed during the day. Well, I also visited the dentist but nevermind the bad parts. I, finally, got one of those digital cameras. An Olympus C-2100UZ which is pretty fun to play around with. Expect some sort of photolog to appear during the week.

Roadside attractions

Why had nobody told me that Kevin P. Smith should appear on Jay Leno with a Roadside Attraction-spot? Well, I saw most of it and it was fun. Kind of like a Michael Palin travelogue, but different.

Fanzines and lots of them

The last two days have been spent with fanzines. Both reading old stf-fanzines from somewhere in the middle of the 80-ies up until fairly recent and at the same time writing number four of Aynia. So far I’ve written about 15 A4-pages, somethings tells me it will grow a bit more before it’s finished. I must not think of the post-work with copying and stuff like that. If I do, everything will halt. Again.

A Christmas greeting

SF-Bokhandeln in Stockholm, they specialise in science fiction and fantasy and other good literature, have received a Christmas-greeting from Robert Rankin to their customers.

Now, Rankin being from “tribes of the south and slightly west” as he puts it — that is London, England — he has a remarkable sense of humour. He even manages to make the greeting fun desipte using the horrible “christmas”-word. And he is even more fun in person. Amazing.

Tough Choice

I should probably either sleep or study for tomorrows Am. Culture-exam, but I can do neither. There are things, flecks of illuminated dots, on the telly. Now, the real choice is between Darkman III, which probably sucks unbeliev’ebly much. Or, on another channel, the Platoon, which is rather good despite being a war-movie.

The question is do I dare to watch Arnold Valdsooooo or what-ever his last name in a sequel of Herculesian proportions. Nah, if seen enough crappy movies this week.

In recommendations

When I entered Amazon.co.uk today, this greated me as recommendations:

Paradox by John Meaney
The Completely Incomplete Graham Chapman by Graham Chapman, et al
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds
Salt by Adam Roberts
Monty Python’s Big Red Book by Graham Chapman

Am I really that predictable? I’ve never heard of Adam Roberts or John Meaney, but the rest I would probably end up buying in a heartbeat.

Why I Don’t "Do" Christmas

Soon, in a few days, it’s Christmas yet again. Trees are dressed up, candles burn and all the relatives gather around a table to have a jolly good time. An entire evening is ruined. Everyone laughs at stupid jokes that never were fun the first time, ten years ago. Everyone talks except me, because I’ve gone away and sits in another room.

I don’t find it fun anymore. There is nothing fun in sitting in a room filled with people whom you don’t have anything in common with, relative ties withstanding. There is no magic in trading worthless gifts and pretending to be happy about it. I feel contempt about it all, from the megalomania that begins in November up until the New Year.

The notion of imposed happiness that the very air conveys in the dining room is against everything I believe in. “Be happy, it’s Christmas!” with plastic smiles and an underlying treat. Mobsters do not act this way; nor does hired assassins, sociologists and socially handicapped über-geeks.

Once the obvious “why”-question is voiced, someone always replies with the standard answer: “It only happens once a year, so behave and be nice.” The twenty-ninth of February only happens once each forth year and no one really bothers about that. There won’t be another date where every digit is uneven for over a thousand year, but no one really cared about Nov 19th 1999. No gifts, no smiles and happy faces.

Nevertheless, I’ll probably end up there anyway, just for an hour or so to scavenge the food. I wonder how I will offend them this year.

Like the Ramones?!

My brother called Bob Dylan for proto-punk, “kind of like the Ramones.” My brother is — as you might understand — insane and possibly even quite mad.

It's all Steve's fault

Yesterday I heard something that I never thought I would hear, words that cut through the air like a steamboat and left piles of debris behind. “I think they should have stopped making more Police Academy-movies when Steven Guttenberg left. I mean, how can they replace an actor like that?” and he dared to say it without laughing, in such a deadpan-mode that it should be an example to the encyclopaedia-entry.

But we laughed, hard and long. There was not much else we could do really. This was also when we realised that we would not get much more studying done. I do not feel like having an exam tomorrow. Not at all.

The Jacob-race

Too bad the stearing were a big awkward, as any race were the goal is to drive over Mr. Jacob Nielsen is fun.

Top Five Possessions

In materialistic times such as these — christmas-time and all — I must write a list. As I don’t really like christmas at all, I won’t make a wishy-washylist nor enything like that. No. Top five possessions I could’t live without:

1. My Terry Carr “Fandom Harvest”-book.
2. My notebook and pen.
3. The red spin-dail phone, yet to be plugged in.
4. Coke. (The soft drink, stupid.)
5. Black socks.

The five doesn’t seem so important, but I can’t figure out what else to put there.

Bugger!

I managed to fuck things up in Movable Type so that I was unable to log in. The thing is that I had to start over from the beginning and well... Since I had to install everything from scratch again, the old archive is somewhat broken.

The old archive is still available if someone is interested, I just can’t bother to import them right this very minute.

Look! It's George!

I’ve just seen the first episode of Curb Your Entusiasm and I’ve come to the conclusion that I like it. The humour was, as expected, pitch dark. I didn’t quite like all the improvisations which sometimes didn’t go unnoticed. I like the hand-camera and how they used it.

Did the show feature one normal person? Probably, but as Mr. David himself was present in every single frame it didn’t seem that way.

Things finish up more and more

It still needs a few tweaks but at least the backbone of the gallery is up. A camera is needed, and time to upload some more, older photos. Time I do not really have right now.

A new read

“What is this?” I proclaimed. And it was what it seemed to be, the second Bruce has got a weblog. (The first Bruce is Campbell, which logically makes the second... you guessed it. Sterling. Are there any more Bruces out there?)