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 So far I've struggled to maintain unpublished.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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It is all about words

Tomato. I don’t know why, but the word blazed through and its red-hot tail etched it into my brain. It is stuck there, much to my chagrin. At first I thought it burned, but now I’ve gotten used to it. I know where it is, and I can, albeit with some difficulties, bring it forth whenever I need to. I have however become aware of some drawbacks; the word tends to creep up when I least expect it. This is not good, this is not proper, and most important of all, and it forces itself on my tongue at the worst possible times. Have you tried to order a cup of tomato at a café?

Truth to be told, I haven’t either. But it was close, really close. I was just about to order a coffee, when the word failed me. The Word tried to get free from its prison, but it didn’t succeed. Thank God. I did not want to drink pressed tomatoes, no matter how fresh they might have been. I stuttered forth a “coffee please”, I took the cup and seated myself to slowly drink the black substance of my choice.

If you notice that you can’t use the word tomorrow, then you’ll know where to point the blame. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience but I hope you’ll understand my predicament. Please, use the word “papaya” instead.

Lost and not found

To the person who searched for “if you lost a hamster”: well, I haven’t and if you have, I don’t have it. It is most likely gone, and while it might have a site of its own, it probably won’t. My advice is to get a new one so that you can play Dungeons & Hamsters again and forget all about Fluffy or whatever the old hamsters name was. And this time, get a beeper on the new one.

Shutdown

Something went wrong. The slaptop choked and destroyed a cluster that contained something important. Windows died, stuttered on the same place as if it where desperate for air. I tired to re-format and it chgoked on the same place.

trying to fix error.

It didn’t succed. It came to halt within a half an hour. Damn, damn, damn. I need a new HD. Right now, I’m trying to get used to the normal keyboard again. It feels awkward and the windows-key is in the wrong place. Irritating is another word, as the slaptop is now rendered useless and I have (now anyway) no way of getting anything of it. I need an 2,5-to-3,5 adapter so that I at least can salvage everything I want to keep.

Damn. The fanzine! I need that adapter faster than a speeding bullet.

Best storyline in a long time

At the most excellent comic strip Goats there is right now one of the most hilarious storylines I’ve seen in a long time.

I can’t even contemplate what it will do to Mr Rosenbergs personal life, as those people which he writes about is not firmly roted in the real world.

But go Goats, go.

More lack of updates

I’ll be taking a leave of absense over the weekend, changing to Stockholmian asphalt under my shoes. So, starting tomorrow there won’t be another update until Sunday. And then I promise you that I’ll have a whole bunch of updates instead. M’key?

The burning straw man

There are more versions of the Wicker Man that there are Star Trek-spin offs and it makes my head hurt. There are the usual 84 minute version, the one that has received the most circulation. This is the butchered version made by the studio without ant regard to theose involved. Then there are one which runs 95 minutes and on that runs 99. The 99 one is a new Directors Cut made from whatever they could save and is the one (together with the 84 theatrical release) which is present in the special edition DVD.

However. There is another version out there that runs for about 102 minutes, the original cut, but that hasn’t been available anyware since -91. Probably, the negative has been destroyed and this is a lost cause nowadays. The BBC-version (92 minutes) doesn’t exist any longer, but it is suspected that it is the same as the 95 minute American release.

It is confusing up to the point that I no longer knows which version I own. Oh well, it is good movie nevertheless. Nice extras too.

Update: the 102 and 99 minute versions are according to those involved making the picture the same. Go figure. I can now relax and go back to study the English language and its origins.

I said cancel it

Dean Allen proves beyond any doubt that he really controls the TV networks. I hope this doesn’t turn him into a megalomaniac.

Mr Knight

I’ve seen it elsewhere too, but this is the best place to link to.

Damon Knight has died. I think I’ll reread Humpty Dumpty: An Oval. You lot, that is those of you who doesn’t already own it, should run and buy it as fast as you can.

17/4 -02

-- So, does anyone have a car and can drive me home? Or do I have to walk half past three in order to watch South Park?
-- I’ll have to wait for Anna, and then we’ll be headed to the post office.
-- Do you got a car?
-- Well... Ahh... I plead the fifth.
-- God damnit. So I have to walk home. Fine. Okay, but I don’t think you’ll laugh if I’m murdered on the way though.
-- We promise you, that if you die on that short walk, we’ll be laughing our asses off.
-- I agree, we would.
-- So you really don’t have a car?
-- Well, yes.
-- Can you drive me home then?
-- After this, I’m going home. I’m not going that direction
-- But, but they have opened up a part of the road. You can drive through.
-- Busses yes, cars no.
-- No, you’re wrong they have opened a new road, I promise. Drive me home and I’ll show you.
-- Something tells me not to.
-- Fine. I’ll walk.
-- You can always walk home and fetch your own car.
-- You’re not taking me seriously, are you?

Unused resources

The Big U wastes resources. It pains me to see them doing so, as there should be a law to prevent this sort of neglect. I mean, if you got books by Flann O’Brien — Irish Genius — then you’d better use them properly and use them in classes such as English. Especially in the course entitled English and Irish Literature, anything else would be sacrilege.

But that would be to ask too much. The teachers probably can’t spell his name, and that is damn shame. Where is the Flann O’Brien Appreciation Society when you need them? (Of course, since nobody seemed to care about the books I had to borrow three of them today. Do not believe the lies who claims I did it because of some other reason.)

Many people at once

I’ve decided I wanted to do something ni Swedish as well as this, so, I went ahead and created a grouplog entitled Automatiserade Benjamin. If you understand the language, feel free to drop in and read it.

Sleep or not to sleep

I don’t know exactly how I feel about this “sleep”-issue. It takes up time when once could do other things instead — forget the fact that I hardly do anything. Sleep is a pretty stupid invention really. Sot of a mishap in the evolution, a problem that was only partially fixed with a bit of duct tape.

Then when I sleep, I actually enjoys it. Especially if its bit chilly in the air and I don’t sweat buckets. Then I can just lay there, in the borderline between awake and asleep and think that this, this is what life is all about. These two opinions do not mesh particulary well with each other.

"I would have let go of those legs now."

Imagine four persons in a room. On the table in front of them someone has placed some beers and on the telly there is a rather goofy movie. They will talk about it, correct mistakes, come up with better solutions, and laugh at errors and stupidities. This is, in essence, the commentary track on Evil Dead II — probably sans the beer though.

Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, Scott Spiegel and Greg Nicotero racks down on themselves and others such as Robert Tapert and Ted Raimi as well as talking about things which really doesn’t have that much to do with the movie itself. Listen to it if you can, it’s hilarious. Gosh, wow.

Essays lost and not found

Question: why is it so hard to find the collected essays of Beatrice Warde? The books are not available at all any more. And everything you can find on the net is the same one: The Crystal Goblet.

What if dialog on the street

-- This man. Is he?
-- Yes, he’s suffering from post-consumer stress. Judging from his pulse and brain activity he has not bought anything for at least half a year.
-- What?! Including food?
-- No, on his breath I can smell chicken salad. He might still be saved. Do you know the CPR?
-- Well, yes, but...
-- No buts mister. Here, take my money and run to the video store.
-- Okay.
-- You’ll be okay. You’ll be... okay.
[ten minutes later]
-- Uhuhh. Uhuhhh. They... They only had the first season of M*A*S*H. Season two was... Uhhuuuhhhuhuha. It hasn’t been released yet. Not on dvd.
-- Damnit! Damnit twice! Quickly, we got one more chance and if we fail, this man is a goner.
-- He’s dead anyway.
-- Shut up! Grab his legs and we’ll carry him to my car. Hopefully my VHS-recordings will be enough. Yeah. Hopefully.
-- He’s not heavy at all.
-- Keep quite and pray that he didn’t hear you. You don’t wanna go there kiddo, don’t ever go there.

SLRN do not blink

Finally I fixed the problem with SLRN — newsreader par excellence — blinking. Fixed is perhaps not the right word, that would probably have me poaking around in the code, and that is something no one want. The problem with blinking text only appears on win2000 when SLRN is in fullscreen and with light background.

So, I tweaked around with the colours and presto! It worked, although I need to get use to the idea of a dark background and uglier colourscheme in general. Still, it is still better than it was before when I could only read news in window-mode.

Why can't everything exist on dvd?

I went to play.com in order to check on the dvds I had ordered and this is what greeted me:

The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) R1 £15.99 Posted 10/04/2002 20:34:00

Posted, already. Much happiness will begin next week as I’ll probably do absolutely nothing beside watching movies (and it will be everything I’d dreamt it would be). No, wait. I have classes to attend next week. Damn. Damn. Damn. So, I have to revise my plans, I’ll watch lots of dvds next week during the night and it’ll be everything I’d dreamt it would be — which happens to be what I usally do anyway.

um. sort of talk you know

So, between 15:00 to 18:00 I had a class to attend. I attended it too, with minor modifications. I was a bit late due to a visit at the giant miniature space hamster called Boo’s apartment. I don’t resent it though; it is okay to be late once in a while and Boo is a character that’s always fun to talk to. The lecture was good, even if some people (names withheld to protect the innocent) left because of boredom.

The topic was the differences between the written and spoken word. I seriously consider to write my C-essay on that topic, provided that I’m accepted for the course next semester of course (no biggie).

Pratchett times two

It appears that there will be another book by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen due in the beginning of May. The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, and I think I got to have it. Not now, but perhaps later in the summer. Pratchett and Stewart are always entertaining. It seems the next proper Discworld novel is entitled Night Watch. Dare I guess even more nocturnal creatures in the Watch?

Sharing is good

I got a lot of SPAM today, so like the good person I am, I though I’d share it with you guys. So, who would want the SPAM? I’m giving it away for free, but you’d better hurry. I have a rather limited supply.

Fresh air and a camera

Decision time. The weather is beginning to look rather good, my feet itch and I feel like talking a hike with my camera. Of course, I can’t do that right now, but soon I hope, I’ll feel the hot pavement under me feet and document life, objects and perhaps even some humans.

Why don’t I do it right now, the clever ones will ask. Oh, you are indeed clever, but not as much as you like to think. The thing is, around here all that there is to capture is nature. The wrong kind of nature. Green trees, grass and other things that quite frankly don’t interest me at all. I like the city more than this, even though I’m fairly sure that Tommy will call me a liar. (He has this idea that everyone like to live outside the cities, just so that they’ll live in a real house. The house part might be right, but the other? No. I don’t think so.)

Reality always twists the other way

Why is it that some people, actually a rather lot of them, can only see reality through a small cone? I find this very disturbing. Just because something is true to one person, that doesn’t make it true to the next. Yet, all the time, people assume this. No, they demand that everything is the way they think it is, reality be damned if it contradicts them.

Panic panic panic

I’ve just came home from Panic Room. It was good, better than good. It was almost excellent. It did live up to my high hopes after Fincher’s Fight Club. He is in my mind the best now living director, hands down. It was beautiful, the way the camera searched between the two “fractions” or whetever once should call it.

Jared Leto played Brad Pitt, I kid you not. The characters name wasn’t that, but the way he moved. It was uncanny. And no one can swing an hammer like Jodie Foster. No one. I want to have this on DVD now. Now. Now. Now.

Raise of the online Short story quality

There is a spankingly new short story by Paul Di Filippo over at Fantastic Metropolis. Go there and read it. Why? Becasue it is by Paul Di Filippo, don’t you pay any attention? The very same man that gave us Kafka as a superhero and Anne Frank as the star of The Wizard of Oz. Just go there and read it already.