Photography – Page 3 – Monocultured

Chess success

I Finally won over Elliot at chess. It might be a one-off thing, but since I kicked everyones butt this time around, there might be hope that I won’t suck forever and ever at this game.

In other news:
* Maternal grandma home and still not well, but in better spirits.
* Paternal grandma going to hospital to assess possibility of either surgery or radiation theraphy.
* Looking to start my own business as photographer. Very nervous about this.
* I’m on Facebook because my friends made me to: www.facebook.com

Finishing a job, drinking wine: cough & boredom

I’ve been a bit knocked out by a cold the past couple of days. Sunday was horribly boring. Before going to bed I realised that the only actual conversation I’ve had with anyone for the whole day didn’t add up to more than three sentences:

1) Saying hi to Eskil when he came by to pick something up
2) Saying bye to Eskil ten minutes later
3) “One pack of LM Light please” at the 7-11

I am looking forward to getting my last salary from Yfo next Tuesday – until them I’m on 50 kronor per day, and since smokes cost 40 I’m not in a happy place. Today turned out to be nice since Tobbe visited – we went to the driving range and he did a handbrake turn. I was impressed.

Saturday was mini-out-day and Jan was kind enough to buy me beer. And wine. And whiskey. And I was coughing my lungs out at the same time. I recall Lenny Bruce (Woody Allen?) making jokes about tuberculosis being a sexy disease; None of the people I spat pieces of my lungs at seemed to appreciate it though.

2007 – the year of suck: Cancer

Got a short email from dad yesterday informing me that grandma prolly has stomach cancer. Wikipedia tells me that five year survival prognosis of late diagnosed gastric cancer is 30%. It’s still not confirmed, and I don’t know what symptoms lead to them discovering it, but it’s not good no matter how you look at it.

Granma has always been extremely self-sacrificing to the point of absurdity in taking care of her family, and if some people can be said to live off of cosmic love rays, she’s living by sheer concern for the misery of man. Anyway: Fuck, fuckity fuckfuck.

— update —

Sure enough, it’s cancer and they’re going to do radiation therapy.

Also, my maternal grandmother is in the hospital as well, with what probably amounts to a gastric ulcer. She’s been ill for quite some time, and hates being as weak as she is. A couple of years ago when I visited her I remember hearing her cry out in pain during the night – she’d keep her shit together during day, but she’s more or less in constant pain and on lots of meds and I guess the stoic front can only last so long.

I can’t imagine how it feels to be clearheaded while your body is breaking down piece by piece. I imagine that at some point the feeling of being broken must become a personality trait. Or can you still perceive yourself as another person, a “whole” person?

Banging gorilla

Take a minute and watch a pretty commercial.
Link: www.aglassandahalffullproductions.com

How fear of death make us react differently even if we are under no immediate threat. An article studying how this effect is used in the USA, but the methods outlined for coercing people is universal and used internationally.
Read here: www.tnr.com

A bunch of papers from MIT studying different aspects of media, online societies and computer games. I haven’t read a single one, but they’re all on my to-read list: cms.mit.edu

In order of appearance:

1) Per peeking peevishly per prejudice the passing of playable time.
2) Last week Elliot won again. The guy to the left is the donor of half Elliots genes.
3) Me at my hottest. And hungoverest.
4) When other people talk about the importance of having an economical buffer, I’m not sure that we are on the same page.

Iraq & chess: scratch-marks

Here’s an interesting and worthwhile interview with journalist Nir Rosen on Iraq. It puts forth the idea that Iraq as a country does not exist any more in any practical terms, other than as a flag. He’s being interviewed by Amy Goodman, who has done excellent progressive work for a long time.

Interview transcript available here: www.democracynow.org

Today is chess day at Kellys. Yay! We’re up to six-eight people each time, and even though I haven’t won, it’s great fun. One week ago a new player showed up and managed to cinch the win by only loosing to the second place player and tie with me:

11 year old ~~brat~~ Elliot kicked our asses. While we were drinking beer he was eating a icesickle. It was awesome.

And on an unrelated note, I have scratchmarks! I’m a man!

Funeral

Today I went to the funeral of a co-worker who died of cancer two weeks ago. I don’t think that I ever met her – we worked at different locations – but I recall talking to her on the phone when pay was due, since she worked the financial thingies. The funeral was a secular occasion with slightly less than fifty people attending, and overall it seemed fitting; I wouldn’t know since this was my first funeral.

Lotta had been sick since January, and celebrated her 40th birthday in spring. Looking at the casket, the sombre people, the sheet with misprinted lyrics for the group song, I started thinking of everyone in the building as diseased – each and everyone an ambulating cluster of cells on the brink of malfunctioning. Every wrinkle a sign of age, every small gesture articulating fragility. You notice the man who is limping slightly, the girl in the wheelchair, perspiration on the person in front of you, and you see disease through and through.

Take care of the living, the dead will mind themselves, is a good sentence to carry around. I imagine that it would be a different situation altogether if it was I who was burying a child or sibling.

Making movies and taking pictures

Jan Pilgaard, the up and coming maverick director, was graceful enough to let me take part in his latest production as a stills photographer. Two days of loitering and taking so many rolls of film you would not believe, (Yeah, I know, film, in this day and age) if you’re unable to believe any number higher than 20. Fun, but leaves me thinking I should do more. So I’ve decided to start doing porn-art; the worst of two worlds, or the best, depending on your disposition.

Also, there is a sky over Gothenburg, and we have birds, and occasionally family that visits and anti-nato grafitti:

A while ago we were on a roof, drinking wine and discussing good sniper positions for two hours. My insight into proper sniperish behaviour is exclusively derived from movies and camping in Ghost Recon, so obviously I’m an authority:

At a certain point in the evening I became, against my better judgement, involved in some sort of vegan debate. This spectacles are more often than not unfruitful and leave me bitter and with yet another dead body to dispose of. Judging from my gesturing and Petters cowering/laughing, it’s easy to surmise that whatever I said about vegan hot-dogs was brilliant, and whatever anyone else said they can stfu and keep to themselves:

Todays theme: It’s too warm! It’s too cold! It’s raining! I’m tired and my body aches!

Celebrating borndom [hah!]

Anna celebrated her mumblemumle‘th birthday with a dinner in the yard. Sound carries like a bitch there, and I’m certain that we entertained all neighbours with our tales of chivalry and hello-kitty-dildos.

As usual, vegan food is regular food sans everything not vegan:

I’m going through a slightly antagonistic phase at the moment.

There went the sun.

Our dear city of Gothenburg has experienced an almost fourfold amount of rain this month. I don’t mind it much, but seriously, it’s too wet.

Last week I managed to capture the sun when it decided to shine it’s shiny shine upon us:

Classic car meet-up

Every monday during summer there’s a meetup for people with classic cars in Nääs, outside of Gothenburg. Even thought I’m not in the least interested in cars, I tagged along Petter, his kids and his uncle Erik went last week. The most fun part was going there in his uncles Pontiac GTO – I was positively giddy riding shotgun with the 2-litlers-per-mile engine going wroom-wroom.

Once there, I was mostly nervous to scratch one of the anally clean cars. I am still not interested in cars, but if I could get one of my own (need to get a licence first) it seems like fun. I would go wroom-wroom a lot.