I'm working on a new project this week, and we're doing 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week. Not quite as bad as I thought it would be (yet, anyway), but still pretty exhausting. I get home, do something else for two hours, then go to bed. Then up again for more work. I feel like I'm doing nothing but sleep and work. I really hope that it won't be like this for more than this week and the next. If I have no free time for myself, I'm going to go nuts. Call me crazy, but these two hours after I get home are not enough.
It seems I should stop caring about people and trying to help them. All it seems to accomplish is to piss them off and alienate them. This is seriously bothering me. Fuck!!
20 September 2006
18 September 2006
What to do...
You know the way you want to help a friend feel better if she calls you and is sad or upset? You listen, you talk to her, you care, you pay attention and do your best to cheer her up, right? So what do you do when two people do that at the exact same time? That happened to me today.
I was talking to Manda on skype, when Liza popped up on msn. Manda was all sad, so naturally I wanted to talk to her and help in any way I could. But Liza was also all sad, so of course I wanted to cheer her up too. But you don't want to give either one the impression that you're not paying attention to them, because that would be disrespectful and they might think that you don't care. And I really do care. But you also don't want to tell one of them that you can't talk to them right now since you're talking to someone else, because you like them both a lot, and they're sad and you don't want to just turn your back on either one of them, right? So what do you do?
I talked to both of them. Typing to one and speaking to one, and let me tell you, that was quite the exercise in concentration and focus. Holy crap... Two different people with completely different problems and both want to talk to you about them, and you have to keep your brain sharp as a razor to get everything they write and say, and to not answer the wrong thing to the wrong person, and... Fuck. This must be one of those situations that the universe puts you in just to fuck with you. What do you do in a situation like that?
I made a traditional norse meal called "kolbullar" for dinner today. The name translates into "coal cakes", more or less. It's a meal that was very common among lumberjacks, coal workers, railway workers and others that had to do strenuous manual labour away from home for several weeks at the time. The men usually had little or no knowledge about cooking, but they needed food that was very easy to make, and would make them full and give lots of energy. Coal cakes contain lots of fat and carbohydrates, so they brought sacks of flour and pork when they left for work. The kind I made today is a slightly fancier version with eggs in them, and with milk instead of water. Here's how to make the traditional kind:
1. Cut the pork into tiny pieces and fry them crispy in a frying pan over an open fire.
2. Mix water and flour and pour the mixture over the pork in the frying pan.
3. Fry the whole thing until it solidifies, then flip it over so that it gets cooked on both sides.
Serve and enjoy!
I was talking to Manda on skype, when Liza popped up on msn. Manda was all sad, so naturally I wanted to talk to her and help in any way I could. But Liza was also all sad, so of course I wanted to cheer her up too. But you don't want to give either one the impression that you're not paying attention to them, because that would be disrespectful and they might think that you don't care. And I really do care. But you also don't want to tell one of them that you can't talk to them right now since you're talking to someone else, because you like them both a lot, and they're sad and you don't want to just turn your back on either one of them, right? So what do you do?
I talked to both of them. Typing to one and speaking to one, and let me tell you, that was quite the exercise in concentration and focus. Holy crap... Two different people with completely different problems and both want to talk to you about them, and you have to keep your brain sharp as a razor to get everything they write and say, and to not answer the wrong thing to the wrong person, and... Fuck. This must be one of those situations that the universe puts you in just to fuck with you. What do you do in a situation like that?
I made a traditional norse meal called "kolbullar" for dinner today. The name translates into "coal cakes", more or less. It's a meal that was very common among lumberjacks, coal workers, railway workers and others that had to do strenuous manual labour away from home for several weeks at the time. The men usually had little or no knowledge about cooking, but they needed food that was very easy to make, and would make them full and give lots of energy. Coal cakes contain lots of fat and carbohydrates, so they brought sacks of flour and pork when they left for work. The kind I made today is a slightly fancier version with eggs in them, and with milk instead of water. Here's how to make the traditional kind:
1. Cut the pork into tiny pieces and fry them crispy in a frying pan over an open fire.
2. Mix water and flour and pour the mixture over the pork in the frying pan.
3. Fry the whole thing until it solidifies, then flip it over so that it gets cooked on both sides.
Serve and enjoy!
16 September 2006
Weekend at last!
It's friday! W00t!
Work was long and mostly boring. Thank god I'm done with that game. If I hadn't played it through a million times already, it would be a pretty entertaining game, but alas, I have. I'm soo sick of those stupid creatures... I mean, if I have to test it, I will of course test it even if I don't like it. That's what work is all about. But given the choice, I would rather never see that game again. After work I had a nice, long chat with my Swedish friend Liza on skype. She's one of those über-smart people who can do double full time studies and hold down a job at the same time. And she speaks russian, french and latin. Pretty cool.
I went to a party tonight at Eric and Virginia's place. Not bad, it was a fairly small party with people sitting around a fire having beer and throwing pretzels at eachother. Y' know, as one does in Canada... I did a small fire show to try out my new, short firesticks. They work pretty nicely to twirl around but they heat up quite a lot, so it's hard to use them for very long times at once.
After the party, I got back to my room and found a daddy longlegs spider, Pholcus phalangioides, crawling around in my room. I caught it in a small plastic container. These spiders are not venomous enough to harm a person at all, and they are actually not so effective against insects either. They have large nets that they bob around it, waiting for bugs to drop by. I managed to catch a fly in the same container, so I was hoping to get to see some spider vs. fly mortal combat here. But they don't really seem to care about eachother. They just ignore eachother and crawl around in the container. How disappointing.
Oh, now something is happening! The spider and the fly stumbled across eachother and it seems the spider somehow managed to bite the fly! The fly seems all woozy and is laying on it's back all dead-like now. Cool! Spider vs. Fly, 1 - 0. I'll go let them out outside soon.
Work was long and mostly boring. Thank god I'm done with that game. If I hadn't played it through a million times already, it would be a pretty entertaining game, but alas, I have. I'm soo sick of those stupid creatures... I mean, if I have to test it, I will of course test it even if I don't like it. That's what work is all about. But given the choice, I would rather never see that game again. After work I had a nice, long chat with my Swedish friend Liza on skype. She's one of those über-smart people who can do double full time studies and hold down a job at the same time. And she speaks russian, french and latin. Pretty cool.
I went to a party tonight at Eric and Virginia's place. Not bad, it was a fairly small party with people sitting around a fire having beer and throwing pretzels at eachother. Y' know, as one does in Canada... I did a small fire show to try out my new, short firesticks. They work pretty nicely to twirl around but they heat up quite a lot, so it's hard to use them for very long times at once.
After the party, I got back to my room and found a daddy longlegs spider, Pholcus phalangioides, crawling around in my room. I caught it in a small plastic container. These spiders are not venomous enough to harm a person at all, and they are actually not so effective against insects either. They have large nets that they bob around it, waiting for bugs to drop by. I managed to catch a fly in the same container, so I was hoping to get to see some spider vs. fly mortal combat here. But they don't really seem to care about eachother. They just ignore eachother and crawl around in the container. How disappointing.Oh, now something is happening! The spider and the fly stumbled across eachother and it seems the spider somehow managed to bite the fly! The fly seems all woozy and is laying on it's back all dead-like now. Cool! Spider vs. Fly, 1 - 0. I'll go let them out outside soon.
14 September 2006
Midweek the gray
Today was cold, gray and rainy. I didn't sleep much last night, so I was dead tired all day too. I dragged myself to the office and went to work at the project I'm working on. At about 10.15 I looked at the clock and thought to myself: "Oh, for fuck's sake... Not even eleven yet?" Yeah. For some reason this seemed like the day that would never end. But it picked up a bit after I got home and talked to my Swedish friend on skype for a while. It's always as nice to see her online when I start the computer. Tomorrow is her birthday. I wish I could be there to congratulate her in person. Grrr... fuckin' Atlantic...
And now, just for fun, a poem I scribbled down yesterday. I originally wrote it in Swedish, so this is a translation of it.
Twilight falls over amber hills
and flaming forests go out
The earth releases the mists once more
to watch over grass and stones
Stars come alive on the heavenly sea
and the moon picks up it's journey
on the well-known path over humans' nest
that she wandered for countless nights
She looks down upon me, and eyes meet anew
as so many nights before
when I sat down to think, and envied her
that she nothing misses or needs
How majestic and fair, how unmoved she is,
in her dress of timeless silver
So unearthily beautiful, so wonderfully cool
this queen of heaven is
She touches my cheek with cold, warm hands
and bathes my body in her light,
until my breath is relaxed and I fall asleep,
to wake to another dawn
And now, just for fun, a poem I scribbled down yesterday. I originally wrote it in Swedish, so this is a translation of it.
Twilight falls over amber hills
and flaming forests go out
The earth releases the mists once more
to watch over grass and stones
Stars come alive on the heavenly sea
and the moon picks up it's journey
on the well-known path over humans' nest
that she wandered for countless nights
She looks down upon me, and eyes meet anew
as so many nights before
when I sat down to think, and envied her
that she nothing misses or needs
How majestic and fair, how unmoved she is,
in her dress of timeless silver
So unearthily beautiful, so wonderfully cool
this queen of heaven is
She touches my cheek with cold, warm hands
and bathes my body in her light,
until my breath is relaxed and I fall asleep,
to wake to another dawn
12 September 2006
Movies n stuff
I went to the movies with Stephan and Antoine today. They saw Little Miss Sunshine. Apparently a really good movie, but it didn't look all that interesting to me so I saw Hollywoodland instead. It's about this private investigator (Adrien Brody) who is trying to figure out how George Reeves, the actor who played Superman in the old TV-series (Ben Affleck) died. Did he kill himself? Was he murdered? Not a very fast-paced movie, more of a drama. But the tale is told in a very interesting way. The movie got off to a pretty slow start, but then it picked up and the ending was actually really good. And Ben Affleck actually did a really good job with this part. Adrien Brody is excellent as the PI, and both Bob Hoskins and Diane Lane are great! Hoskins does not play a very big role in this movie, but he has always been one of my favourite actors. He's usually pretty intense and very convincing in the parts he plays. Much like Armin Mueller-Stahl, who is almost scary in how genuinely he portrays the characters he plays, perhaps most notably in the movie Shine, where he portrays Peter Helfgott, the father of piano genius David Helfgott. The piano genius himself if played by an absolutely amazing Geoffrey Rush. In the scenes where Helfgott is playing the piano, it's actually Rush's own hands you see. Pretty cool...
Another very good movie on the theme of musicians, is Hilary and Jackie, a movie about the life of British classical cellist Jacqueline Du Pré, played by Emily Watson. The film is based on the book A genius in the family, written by Jacqueline's sister and brother-in-law. The movie adapts the hell out of the book, portraying Jacqueline as quite the nutcase and a not very likeable person. But putting realism and historical accuracy aside, it is an incredible movie, both tragic and gripping, about the cello prodigy's decline into a devastating and ultimately terminal disease. Bring tissues if you decide to see it, as chances are you'll be crying a lot.
There are a lot of good movies and loads of good actors. Jet Li is a good actor. Now, I realize that that sentence will quickly remove any credibility I might have as a film critic in the eyes of some people, but keep reading, and I will tell you what I mean.
Jet Li is not likely to win any oscars for best male actor anytime soon. He's no Tom Hanks or Meryl Streep. But look at what he does. So far he has mostly done martial arts movies, straightforward things with relatively simple plots where the main idea is to display breathtaking fight choreographies and stunning martial arts skills. And with that in mind, Jet Li is incredibly good and successful at what he does! Anybody who knows anything about martial arts knows who Jet Li is. So in his own way, Jet Li is a great actor! Much the same way Arnold Schwartzenegger is. Arnie might not be the most expressive and flexible actor on the screen, but as the stereotypical action hero, who blows things up and kills people while spouting more or less lame one-liners, he's about as good as they get. In fact, he's one of the most successful action heroes on screen ever. So yup, he's a great actor too. As long as you remember that a great actor is not necessarily the same thing as an actor who can play any part given to him or her perfectly, and move the audience to tears with incredible skill and sincerity.
Another very good movie on the theme of musicians, is Hilary and Jackie, a movie about the life of British classical cellist Jacqueline Du Pré, played by Emily Watson. The film is based on the book A genius in the family, written by Jacqueline's sister and brother-in-law. The movie adapts the hell out of the book, portraying Jacqueline as quite the nutcase and a not very likeable person. But putting realism and historical accuracy aside, it is an incredible movie, both tragic and gripping, about the cello prodigy's decline into a devastating and ultimately terminal disease. Bring tissues if you decide to see it, as chances are you'll be crying a lot.
There are a lot of good movies and loads of good actors. Jet Li is a good actor. Now, I realize that that sentence will quickly remove any credibility I might have as a film critic in the eyes of some people, but keep reading, and I will tell you what I mean.
Jet Li is not likely to win any oscars for best male actor anytime soon. He's no Tom Hanks or Meryl Streep. But look at what he does. So far he has mostly done martial arts movies, straightforward things with relatively simple plots where the main idea is to display breathtaking fight choreographies and stunning martial arts skills. And with that in mind, Jet Li is incredibly good and successful at what he does! Anybody who knows anything about martial arts knows who Jet Li is. So in his own way, Jet Li is a great actor! Much the same way Arnold Schwartzenegger is. Arnie might not be the most expressive and flexible actor on the screen, but as the stereotypical action hero, who blows things up and kills people while spouting more or less lame one-liners, he's about as good as they get. In fact, he's one of the most successful action heroes on screen ever. So yup, he's a great actor too. As long as you remember that a great actor is not necessarily the same thing as an actor who can play any part given to him or her perfectly, and move the audience to tears with incredible skill and sincerity.
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