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 So far I've struggled to maintain unpublished.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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Older might be better

More in the fun toys department. Use a typewriter as a keyboard instead of the plastic claptrap used today. Complete with a how-to guide. The problem with the special keys still remain since there are no real things to connect the function to, but apart from that it works.

(photo from the site mentioned above)

Fun with lamps

Gyrolights are kind of neat, but I doubt that I’d be able to have on standing in a corner without losing my mind. For one thing, it would take up valuble shelfspace as well as driving me nuts with all that spinning and flashing. Initially though, it would look neat. (Found at MCiOS:Hyperlink Game)

The Nixie tube digital clocks however is much more than neat. A big plus is that it wouldn’t be annoying after two minutes. Small and cute with wires and circuits, is it a wonder that I like it so much? One problem is that I can’t build one. Well, I could but I wouldn’t want to be present. Me and homemade electronics don’t go well together — at all. In fact, if I try I’ll probably soon be standing there all goofylooking with a court-order telling me to stay away from lightswitches in my hand. (Found at Charlie Stross)

the Pillow Book

Previously this week (technically it was last week) I saw the Pillow Book. It has gone a few days, the images is still there. The calligraphed letters, the small windows that sometimes are used to show the actual movie. It is... The text... God, this is hard. The movie is about text, the text matters and plays an integrated part in the story. It is hard to explain, which is a bit weird. Text is supposed to be read and written, but here it almost takes a visual aspect. It is really neat. Sadly to say, they don’t make many movies about text fetishism.

It is an artsy movie, but in a good way. (Note to self: I might need to clarify what I mean with artsy sometime in the near future and the difference between that and artsy-fartsy.) Wonderful use of rare techniques of the media, great use of languages (English, Cantonese, Italian, Japanese, and Mandarin), quirky narration and so on. The only problem is the somewhat paperthin plot but I guess its’s just that kind of a movie. It is very hard to describe it properly. So Tommy, this is another of those movies that you probably should stay away from.

Curvespotting 101

In case any Swedish person with impeccable taste has missed it, it is Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV4 tonight at 23:00. Which is better than the 00:10 slot they had given it the last time around. It is also much better because there is nothing else worth watching at the same time. But never mind that for now.

The important bit is that it is the episode called Bad Girls. It’s a great episode and all, but there is one scene in the middle where Buffy and Faith is ion the dancefloor at the Bronze after a slay. The music in that scene is a song by Curve. I realise that this is not for everyone, but I can’t stress this enough. Curve, the band that if we lived in a fair Universe should have been renowned by now and sell much more records than... I don’t know... talentless hacks such as the Beatles.

Not everybody likes Curve though, but what do they know? Right. Nothing at all.

Stop using that word!

I have a few pet peeves but one of these has blossomed quite a lot recently. The translation of the word freak, or, it is rather the neglect of translation that makes me distracted. I just don’t get it. It is quite easy to translate into Swedish. There is a word for it. Sometimes in rare situation you might have to use a phrase instead of just one word but all in all there isn’t any problem.

Only that more and more now ignores this and just skips the translation part. Instead they just put the word freak into the Swedish sentence as well. Which looks ridiculous. There is no reason for this whatsoever. To recognise the proper translation doesn’t require research or special knowledge, it is a basic word that is more than adequate for most needs. Children have used it and synonyms in playpens since the dawn of time.

It just irks me.

New body parts

I actually watched the news yesterday, and for once I saw something that almsot made me jump up and down from joy. A new insulin device for diabetic. A small round disc with enough insulin for three months that they insert into the body of the diabetic. The diabetic can control the injection with a remote control at any time a day without much hassle.

It has a little bit more miles to go of course, it was a bit bulky and not invisable when hidden in the body, but still. It works and it helps the lives of those affected. Together with the implants that make blind people see, news such as this is fun. Human engineering is turning out to really be human engineering. I can’t help to wonder what’s next.

Bob's Story

I was on a train and so was Bob and Bob. It was kind of warm and nice between the stops, but when the train came to a halt the doors went up and lots of cold air filled the box. You see, the whole damn thing was new and as all new transportation devices it must by some cosmic law be flawed in its construction. Anyway, I ate my sandwiches blabbered on a while. Two and half hours or so we reached Gothenburg. It was cold and it didn’t rain. Which was wrong on several levels. It should rain, damnit. That’s what Gothenburg is all about: rain.

Anyway. The tall Bob was there already, and while we took our bags and stashed them away two of the remaining Bobs also arrived. We were now six people, which was as many as we would be. A short ride with the tram and we spent money at the Science Fiction Bookshop. Some spent more than others, and I guess I spent the most. As usual. (See full booklist enclosed at the end.)

Food. I think it was a Greek restaurant, but I’m not sure. They had pasta so I was happy. We tried to get tickets to the Lord of the Rings-thingy but that was pretty much like being a fish in a barrel and a tactical nuke was dropped into it. We could have bought one ticket and then sneaked in the rest of us in a bag or something, but we didn’t. Someone wasn’t too keen on the idea. Instead we went to Bob with the nice new apartment and watched some other movies.

The couch I had slept on wasn’t built for it, but it turned out that it was not as bad as I first had thought. 10cm too short, my feet dangled outside. I slept well though which is what counts. To breakfast, we watched some tv. OR rather downloaded tv. Those two who lived in the town elsewhere showed up almost right after we had started the unaired pilot to Buffy.

(Oh, boy. That pilot was... Unbelievable. Many of the characters had the right actors, except for Willow. Don’t touch my Willow. That casting was wrong and evil. Luckily, they felt the same way and got the right person for the show.)

Once again, we decided to fight the cold weather in a futile pursuit of cinema tickets. Once again, it was an utter defeat and a laugh in the face. Only one thing to do, drown our sorrows in a used bookshop. It works every time. Lots of books were found. We went back to the apartment, made food and watched the first season of Buffy as it is suppoed to be watched. Some of the Bobs hadn’t seen it before, others had just seen an episode here and there. Only Bob and I had seen all of it. The secret of the first season is that it works much better if you have people to banter with. The flaws mostly disappear. This took a while as you might have guessed.

The next day consisted with packing and walking around. Of course, there were a lot more happening. Talk mostly, and I can’t remember a single quote. Several “make the bad images stop” and “all this laughing makes my body hurt” attacks occurred. All in all, it was a good weekend.

The Bobs have other names. They have been changed, not for protection, but just because I wanted to.

Booklist

• Duane, Diane: Sword and the Dragon, the
• Pullman, Philip: Count Karlstein
• Carroll, Lewis: Complete and Illustrated Lewis Carroll, the
• De Lint, Charles: Greenmantle
• Stevermer, Caroline: A College of Magics
• Chabon, Michael: Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, the
• Lindholm, Megan: Wizard of the Pigeons
• Hodgson, William Hope: House on the Borderlands and Other Novels, the
• Trudgill, Peter: Sociolinguistics
• Kay, Guy Gavriel: Lions of Al-Rassan, the
• Davidson, Avram: Avram Davidson Treasury, the
• Smith, Michael Marshall: Straw Men, the
• Vinge, Vernor: Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge, the
• Smith, Michael Marshall: What You Make It
• McKillip, Patricia: Winter Rose
• Collins, Nancy A.: Darkest Heart
• Wrede, Patricia C.: Mairelon the Magician
• Klein, Naomi: Fences and Windows

Book information up front

The best page in Ben Schott’s Schott’s Original Miscellany is page 152. Mr Schott understands the usefullness of font history, baseline used, what paper the book was printed on and even the points in the dotted tabs (6pt) and the margins of the book itself. This is useful information. Not everyone understands it, but this should be in every book. Perhaps not quite as far as the little snippets of statistics at the bottom of the page, but if included that is allowed as well.

Fantasy tie-in products

Gormenghast lego. I wish it was my own idea but it isn’t. Some unknown person searched for it and ended up here. But think about it for a minute or two. It is brilliant. It will, I suppose, not be cheap since the castle is quite huge. Lots of small parts and hinges so that one can open it up and get inside. See Swelter in his kitchen. Flay asleep in the hallway. The cats all swarming over the room of the Countess. The now secret rooms where Fuchsia dwells when she wants to escape. All the birds in the Tower of Flints.

My only wish is that they make it out of real lego and not the newer three-pieces-and-it’s-done crap. The perfect gift to people like... well, me I guess. Wicker Man Lego wouldn’t be a bad idea either. A huge yellow wicker man. Huge.

About the future of this site

How about if I do it this way instead? Will it be better? Doubtful, but on the other hand I’ll probably feel much more at ease. The last few weeks, months, whatnots, I’ve slipped away from my purpose here. To write. I wrote yes, but in the wrong way. I didn’t approach it like I should have. I got distracted. Distracted by what I don’t know, but distracted nevertheless. (I get that a lot.)

I’m going to approach this thing as if it were a fanzine. Mentally that is, I’m not going to turn it into a substitute for the real things made in paper. No, don’t ever dare to suggest such a thing. See it as a training ground used to keep me typing even when I don’t have to. Just to type and get things out of my system.