Tag: christmas

Christmas travel, Sheikh travel

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Christmas was spent in Stockholm, mostly at my moms or her partners place, until they took of for Florida. New this year is that Sara and Tura tagged along, and my brother once again proved his worth in child-entertainer gold. Since Kungsängen is a space-out zone and I revert into a teenage sloth when in its proximity, I didn’t even get to record much video. This is the excuse for not showing the exchange of gifts or stuffing of faces with foods, in the video above. I do beg your pardon.

I bought Sara lightbulbs for Christmas, she bought us a trip to Sharm el Sheikh — Seems a fair trade. So now we’re hoping that we won’t get sick (well, sicker) so that I can get a refresher diving course and Sara can snorkel to her hearts delight. Last time I had a chance to SCUBA was in Hawaii and I got a perfectly timed cold which precluded anything more vigorous than walking, and it would suck whaleballs if that happened again. So I’m eating vitamins and drinking my required glass of red wine a day — even being ambitious and overdoing it a bit, just to be sure.

It looks as though New Years Eve is spent at least partially at our place, which is a great motivator for tidying the place up; one more example of how my priorities have gone all pear- and bourgeois-shaped lately. No, but seriously, it’s gonna be fun. Really, I’m looking forward to having people over leaving popcorn in the dip, spritzer in my keyboard and the bookshelf de-alphabetized. Happy New Years!

Christmas and cohabitation.

The holidays passed with little fanfare, I spent them in Stockholm with the closest family at hand and the rest at Skype distance. Mom isn’t her full self at the moment, and the dinners were slightly less elaborate than the five course meals we usually make. I rediscovered how much work goes into making the potatoe-dumplings, which I wolf down by the dozens. Christmas Day I and Tomasz joined in the public celebration of the birth of beer, and sat with Admas in a bar and discussed ambitions, and fashion, and then I think I had Calvados?

On a recommendation from Miss Walker I visited Tevere, a bakery which also carries vegan pizza. Rather on the expensive side, but the pizzas were awesome both times I ate there.

New Years day was spent at the gym with Sara, where I nearly passed out. I can only assume that my body shut down out of fear that I would become too fit and muscular. In the evening a bunch of us gathered at Petters new place. We saw the fireworks over Hissingen skyline, although I saw most of it through the viewfinder, being concerned with capturing it. Next year I’d like to be somewhere where the explosions can actually be felt. It’s well know that arrhythmia heightens ones appreciation of sparkling things.

Andreas visited for a short while, and then he left for New York — or as it’s henceforth known: Nävvan. I’m still working on the mixtape he’s getting for birthday. I’ll have to make up for it by making it really good, and perhaps actually sending him a magnetic tape. I have half a sack of those just waiting for coming to use…

And speaking of having a bunch of old stuff laying around, I’m trying to getting rid of as much of it as possible, as we’re moving in together. This is momentous and exciting, and a first for me. We’re already discussing wall colours and such, and my suggestions of stripes the colours of a 1920 ice-cream stand have met with tacit approval. Perhaps it’s not so much approval as acceptance and stoic suffering; “Enduring love” as it were. Or perhaps it’s just an understanding that I talk a lot and will likely have changed my mind before we move in.

I’m moving out of my place as soon as possible and have hopefully already found a taker, and we’re moving into our new place beginning of March. This is going to be an exciting spring! I’m gonna Sawyer y’all into plastering and painting walls, so you might as well start digging out your coveralls. I’ll consider offering light snacks and coffee to sweeten the deal even further. But before we get to that, there’s the whole “moving” thing. You’ll be happy to know that you’re welcome for that as well, as there’s no end of the enjoyment my friendship offers.

Embracing misery, awaiting death. The story of the sick wuss.

I’m sick as a puppy kicked with boots of botulism, and have spent the past week building myself a cocoon of self-pity out of spit, phlegm, slime and mucous. My brother and I have taken turns to laugh hysterically at our miserable state and inactivity; I have listened to old episodes of How to disappear completely and drunk copious amounts of tea. As an aside, I have little faith left in the healing powers of whisky – massive headache followed our attempt at Scottish healing.

The running shoes I brought are still in their bag. The book I brought has only been opened once. All meetings with friends came to naught and I’ve spend some ten hours looking for a new cellphone because I have come to hate the Samsung I’m currently stuck with. On the bright side, I did get to ride a taxi from downtown to Kungsängen, which put my suburb in a more accessible place, albeit only mentally.

As things stand, I’m looking for ways to get home to Gothenburg in time to infect everyone in the city with whatever it is that I have. The streets will run foul with the stench of decay and poor hygiene, and civilisation as we know it will be no more! That, or I’ll just have a cocktail and go home and sleep post fireworks.

Below is a Explosm.net cartoon, followed by one from XKCD.com. Both required reading in these times.

Tan Le, co-founder and president of Emotiv Systems, gives a live demo of a mind control device that uses a person’s thoughts to input computer commands.

→ Fora TV: Tan Le at The Entertainment Gathering, Dec 12 [via Tobias]

BILLION DOLLAR BILLBOARD – By Lee Beavington

Damien gasped.
“Look at the stars! They’re MOVING!”
His friends ignored him, stumbling over the beach with bottles in hand. Damien dug his toes in the sand and craned his neck. He tried to rationalize the tiny, shifting white lights. Too far to be planes, too close to be planets. The several dozen scattered twinkles rearranged themselves in the cloudless sky. Maybe he had had too much to drink. Unless..

A moment later he read the constellation of satellites.
DRINK DUKE BEER!
Then the satellites dispersed. A friend slapped him on the back. “Do as it says, eh? Bottoms up!”

→ From the webpage of G. W. Thomas, where a different author presents a very short piece of fiction each day. I recommend you subscribing to it by email here: www.gwthomas.org

Finished: Appropriate christmas

I got tired of writing on the essay yesterday, and with a numb brain I set about finishing the homepage of the Appropriate Christmas sound piece.

You are ordered welcome to spread the link to the homepage.

As always, feedback in encouraged.

—[from the homepage]—

The Appropriate Christmas is a audio mix of some 2400 christmas tracks that I’ve downloaded over the years. The collection is mostly compromised of albums published in the English speaking world, although there are exceptions. (most notably Swedish albums)

Having grown up with the image of Christmas being an all-family happy happening, I’m one of those people bitter about promises never fullfilled, presents never delivered, families never being what they should be. There’s a reason why the suicide rate is it’s highest during christmas, and maybe by listening to the ambience of christmas destilled it’s possible to get a distance to all the expectations. Or maybe it just further drives you into a delerium.