I asked a friend “Conan, what is best in life” and got a rather good summery from her: The best of life might be a time when you have the feeling your brain is being challenged and fed everyday, without having loads of stress and fear or inferiority complexes.

Kayaking! There is absolutely no reason for me to think kayaking is a good thing, but why the fuck not? It’s not as though I have a bunch of other hobbies that compete for my attention (Note to self: It’s always sunny in Philadelphia isn’t a hobby) and there’s always the off chance that I’ll enjoy myself – God forbid – and have fun.

I know I wrote that interesting stuff is happening around me and I’m looking forwards to spring. Yes, well, that was like a week ago and the happy happy has left the way of Spongebob (and the season 4 of It’s always sunny in Philadelphia) leaving me once again pondering the meaning of life and the “get a job for summer” issue.

Lars, the happy architect I worked with at the museum last spring, is full of sage advice on any topic, and pointed me in the right direction when I asked about kayaking. I have this idea, see, where I would travel through Sweden on a kayak, using only smaller rivers and lakes. There are people paddling up the coast, but in my minds eye I see myself slowly gliding next to the riverbank with a straw in my mouth with a whistle on my lips. Whenever I felt like it I would just lean to one side and sleep on the soft and green grass; Birds chirping and strawberries within reach.

Maybe a slight exaggeration, but I’d rather call it “hope” than “lunacy.” Forrest Gump never listened to the nay-sayers, now did he? Just picture me smiling like an idiot, paddling up a river. Tell you what, I might even consider fishing if the expedition would be long. (Or does tofu keep for three weeks in a kayak?)

A while back I got a respons to the “To Whomever” thing. Instead of writing a letter to the person in the picture, Tobias wrote a short biography. Much appreciated. If you would like to participate, please check out the original post and send a letter to the person you imagine is in the photo. Include a postal address and I’ll send a copy signed in character – A perfect decoration for any fridge. The image below is on its way to Tobias.

Vold Streckzy is in a direct descending way related to Nedeljko Cabrinovic, the biggest klutz in history. Vold himself does not know this. But to a person having this knowledge when looking upon Vold it makes perfect sense.

Vold always has a look of fear in his eyes. He’ve had this ever since he was a small boy living in the outskirts of Sarajevo where he one day due to a series of highly unlikely events fell of his tricycle. After tumbling down a rocky slope with thorny bushes for a good 5 minutes he ended up in a sheep den. As he had a considerable amount of vertical velocity he got stuck waist-high in sheep droppings. Given the sheep being startled and that Vold had the shame of his ancestor hanging upon him, the sheep attacked. Then after dodging hooves for what seemed like the better part of his childhood his mother came and dragged him out.

After the incident they moved to Turkey but the ill-omen resting upon Vold never seized tormenting him. He has been on the move ever since. Hence the constant fear in his eyes.

Much of my online activity as of late has migrated towards Twitter and Blip. In case you don’t know them they are micro-blogging services. The micro implies both the length of the messages you can publish, and also the length of my attention span – which seems to have shrunk to measures traditionally used for 100m dash.

Like right now, while writing this, I blipped two songs and emailed Petter about it and updated my Twitter feed (even though it auto-updates every five minutes).

At the same time as the immediacy of connection is being realised, there’s an almost constant feeling of “wait, where were I?” Some of us have become so fully immersed in our computers and their proffered connections that we’ve become very active nodes. We’re spending so much time computing and parsing data that to an online observer we might as well be highly specialised and slightly retarded computers. Or maybe it’s just me; Having so much info passing through eyes and ears and out my fingertips, and retaining nothing but the constant buzzing noise, the trunk noise of a phone held to the ear.

[flv:https://monocultured.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/untitled-linked-comp-01_1.flv https://monocultured.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/picture-1.png 640 360]

The upside of all this – Olle tells me that optimistic posts are better than “the self-loathing and whiny stuff” I occasionally write – is that I’m getting stuff done. Granted, it’s not like I’m actually using all my waking hours being creative or something, but there is a feeling of “getting shit done” in the air which is uplifting.

There’s that thing with my brother and that thing with Petter, and some stuff Ana and I have been talking about as well as the whole Skup Palet that Anna, Jan + a bunch of us are learing at. With that, I know it’s easy to talk about stuff that you might do or are interested in doing or perhaps would consider doing if the conditions are favourable and you are sober enough, but there’s something in the air. Like, pollution, only good pollution.

Thanks to global warming the winter has been mild here and we’ve been spared the sleet and piss that a Gothenburg winter is commonly associated with. Knock on wood. It all adds up.

I can’t believe I’m actually looking forwards to spring. Let’s recap the past year: I quit smoking after 7 years, started running, got a drivers license and had an interesting job both in spring and fall. And I got a moustache.

And now I’m looking forwards to spring, lying on my bed looking up at the clouds passing by. It’s just like that science guy from Independence Day when he played another science guy in The Fly and he slowly turns into a fly and peels his eyes off. Only I’ve peeled my eyes off and discover I’m now a twinkly hippie person. Before you know it I’ll be tie-dying shit and doing astral journeys in public.

The only thing worse than trying to hold it together while on drugs is having someone with you who knows you are trying to hold it together while on drugs.

→ Student gives his teacher LSD on a field trip, by John Moss: metrosantacruz.com

I broke a needle, and lesson learned Re: Using gaffers tape for support, but I managed to stitch a pair of pants together. By “together” i mean I’m no longer exposing any nasty bits, although obviously my craftsmanship isn’t perfected yet. Some people didn’t notice the careful work and dedication I put into it. Well, some people can go suck an egg, that’s what I say. And I used a coloured thread on purpose. It was an artistic decision.

Because being psychosomatic is an interesting hobby, I spent the other day doing a mix-n-match between my blood-test results and possible deficiencies/symptoms. I do this vegan blood test once a year or so to see what stuff I might be lacking (I don’t feel like becoming a B12-goth) and this time it turns out that I have way too high iron levels. Four hours later, I’m quite certain i might have become a B12-goth.

I have a meeting with lady in white come Monday, and she’ll prolly tell me to stop being a whiny turd, hopefully using more comforting language. But it’s always tempting to assign blame – and if I could pass off my tiredness and passivity as of late to something as banal as vitamin deficiency, I could just as easily be placeboed into “fitness” or something resembling it. Below, Anna and Jonas, two of the most fit people I know.

The only pants that actually fit me – and by that I mean the pants that don’t make me look like a pornographic sausage roll – have suffered terrible deterioration. Apparently I’ve developed crotch-rot, because I now have four pairs that are beyond silly to wear and make the hairy leg-flesh look like a ill-cleaned pork kassler; I don’t know how many people I have mentally scarred. Will sit down with sewing machine tomorrow and try to remedy the sad state of affairs, if pants can be said to have states of affairs.

In other news: 1) I went to the gym with Petter last Friday and still can’t bend my legs properly. 2) I get less shit done than I’d like – am tired. Maybe eating poorly. 3) Started running again and my pulse is up at 180 when I run as slow as possible which means that the whole “ærobic excercise” stuff is out the window 4) Jonas, Tobbe and Mark have all visited without me mentioning it here. I don’t know why I’m not updating more often. Blame Twitter. 5) Students of mine might be reading this blog, so expect fewer cock-jokes.

Tomorrow, I’m going to take advantage of an offer to exercise for free at a a local gym. I’m gonna try to keep my bpm below the aerobic threshold of 142 in order to become less of a disgrace than I am now – I can hardly walk up stairs without getting winded and I sleep like a cyborg on meth because I’m not expanding energy on anything except typing, frying tofu and masturbation reading poetry. If downloading shit on the Interwubs would require physical labour I would be Adonis incarnate though. (I just got 3GB of “shoegazing” whatever that is)

About this whole “Chill the Fuck Out” new years promise thing. It’s nothing more than an awkward way of trying to rein in all the pointless stress. To simplify life, if you like. Have a bit more fun, have a bit less of a meaningless time. Try not to lie to others nor myself. It’s a Doctor Phil feel-good bonanza.

In other news: My brother burned his hands. I think he got the CFO method down pat.

In case you are not as attentive as you ought to be, the New Years resolution of 2009 is: Chill the Fuck Out. Or CFO for short. If you like, you can make that homegirl gesture I’ve seen teenagers do (the floppy wrist thing) and say “oh, well, why don’t you just C-F-O, bitch!” and everything will be fine. I will elaborate on this further.

I came back to Gothenburg in time to welcome the new year with a couple of friends. After dinner we headed to Heaven 23 (on the 23rd floor of a hotel) for drinks and fireworks. We’d been told that a strict dress code would be enforced, and as a result we all looked bloody fabulous in jackets and such. Anna and Hanna had given me a scarf with flower prints on which allowed me to play the part of a toyboy and/or gay chihuahua.

We pretty soon realise that the whole dress code thing doesn’t apply to the scores of hotel guests that have found their way to the top floor with their kids in search for lebensraum and alcohol. The enterprise we had set out on is now transforming in front of our eyes into an after ski, but with more expensive alcohol and family friendly music volume. Once the fireworks start the kids are swarming, longingly staring out over the city but probably missing their Playstation consoles.

We’ve been buying drinks for two hours or so and slowly realise that we’re not getting value for money. We wrap shit up and leave in search for other venues that might enjoy our custom, and where we might actually enjoy being customers. I’m still sick and communicate mostly through coughs and spit – I’m a whiny bastard when I’m sick – so it’s actually a relief when we give up on finding anything interesting at half two and take the tram home.

Mum just got back from Hawaii, where she and her boyfriend were seeing new places and having a grand time. Sounds like fun, that. My Christmas has been spent under the banner of plague and lethargy, and I’m looking forward to getting back to work at Chalmers and planning stupendous projects. Also, I need to make more money so that I can buy people all those Christmas presents I’ve been putting off for three weeks. I mean, my brother got two pairs of socks from me, which although they were designer socks, still are socks.

Contrary to the title, I don’t have a new years resolution yet. I’m working on it and it’ll be a good one. Promise.

I’m beginning to believe that everything about me that makes me attractive to people and makes them want to be with me might actually be a personality disorder. I don’t know who I am anymore.

→ Grouphug.us: Anonymous confessinon #440163784

My boyfriend cheated on me and I retaliated by posting an ad on Craigslist and giving a random guy a blowjob. In his apartment. I’ve never cheated before and I had to get drunk just to be able to do it. Now I feel so dirty and worthless. I called him and my sister right afterwards crying and claiming rape. I’m a liar and a hypocrite. But I can’t tell him because it would hurt him worse than anything else I could have done.

→ Grouphug.us: Anonymous confession #727171051

I drive a VW but the Tuareg, not the oldskool buss. My wife just had to have a Lexus. I’m married to a half frigid wheight obsessed woman, have a stupid dog (she takes it to those stupid shows every other month) and 2 kids who I doubt will ever amount to anything other than spoiled brats.

→ Grouphug.us: Anonymous confession #334748862