2024-01-06 Saturday
♫ V/A - Mot Sverige I Tiden (2024)
My diary section is now being replaced by posts over on Cohost instead. It's basically the same, but a bit more structured and easier for me to maintain in the long run.
2024-01-01 Monday
♫ Feikn - Helhesten (1998)
I've started using Cohost for my shorter bursts of thoughts/interests and therefore the diary section will be removed in the near future.
2023-12-10 Sunday
♫ Mizzurna Falls - ミザーナフォールズ (1998)
I just got back from a trip up the northern parts of Sweden to visit my girlsfriend's parents and just... walk around in the snow. We live in the south of Sweden so snow isn't particularly common. I figured if I want to see some snow, we shouldn't wait for it to come to us (like once evey ten years or so) - we should go to where the snow is. And let me tell you, it was like a christmas card everywhere I looked. It's so nice to walk around in complete silence with nothing but the crunchy sounds of my footsteps, I wish we could make this trip every december, and perhaps even stay a little longer. But with our work schedules I sadly don't think it's possible to expand the getaway to more than three days. I took a few photos as well:
2023-12-07 Thursday
♫ Abyssic Hate - Depression (1995)
So, december has arrived. :) Things are mixed for me, since this is the first christmas without my deeply loved dog. I didn't think it'd affect me this heavily since it's been eight months since we had to put her down. By that I obviously don't mean I should be "over it", but I thought I'd be able to enjoy christmas for what it is a bit more than how I'm feeling at the moment (every song, every smell, every tv show, every taste, I just go "last time I felt/saw this Dolores was with me"). Anyway, it's still a few weeks left to go, so my christmas cheer will only increase. It's okay.
I thought I'd share some of my interesting christmas finds on the World Wide of le Web. First off I have to tell you about AntiKrist's Christmas page. It perfectly encapsulates the feeling I'm after and I've been visiting it on and off these last few days. It's also immensely funny that it's from AntiKrist.
Next up is the christmas section on the homepage of Saint Helena Island, one of the worlds most remote islands (because of course I wanted to know about that place, and then subsequently about their christmas celebration traditions). Did you know that during their christmas celebrations, which takes place during their summertime, their food shops are almost exclusively filled with alcohol, chocolate, biscuits and other Christmas food?
Last up is Jalla Jalla En Jul För Alla, which is a project run in my town where people that are poor, alone, homeless or in any way shape or form unable to celebrate christmas can go to do just that. Celebrate christmas, have some food, gifts, company and fun. Strangely enough the website is all in swedish, but I guess there's competent translator plugins out there.
2023-11-15 Wednesday
♫ Infernöh / Nomad - Split EP (2014)
I can't wait for december to arrive. I'm a huge christmas fan. My mom cared a lot about christmas when I grew up and tried her best every year to give me that special christmas feeling, and I believed in Santa a few more years than my peers. :) But I eventually became a teenager and lost the christmas cheer. Christmas eve (in Sweden we celebrate christmas on the 24th) only meant a slightly fancier dinner and then beers on the town with my friends. I've put those years behind me and as I've grown older that old familiar, warm and fuzzy, christmas feeling has started to show up again. Now I'm a total christmas nut (pun intended). My girlfriend isn't particularly fond of christmas though, so we've decided to keep all the christmas things to december alone. No ornaments or christmas music during late november or in early january, it all starts on december 1st and ends somewhere between christmas and new years eve. So now I wait... I can almost hear a faint ringing of bells in the rainy november winds...
2023-11-08 Wednesday
♫ Schizophrenia! - Single-ticket To Demo-lition (2015)
I dropped my phone again. Last time it met asphalt it got some cracks on the back and a scratch over the camera lenses. Sure, it had a little more trouble focusing on things but I could live with it. This time though it got a huge crack going straight down the middle, the entire length of the screen. It's time to get a new one. But the phones of today, if I want something similar or better, is incredibly expensive and I'm so pleased with this one (P30 Pro) that I think I'll just buy another one. They are quite affordable on the second hand market and while they, sure, are stuck on Android 10 and only have a 60hz display, they take really good photos and the battery goes from 0% to 100% in 45 minutes or so and lasts for almost three days of regular use. Absolute units.
I've been practicing a lot of Espgaluda recently, I really want that 1CC. I can beat all the stages and bosses in practice and I've managed to take down the last boss (the hardest part for me in this game) just fine a couple of times now, so it's time to work on putting it all together into one run.
I also really really missed my dog today.
2023-10-25 Wednesday
♫ D-Clone - Creation And Destroy (2012)
I've started swimming again. It was over ten years since I quit, so I'm back to square one. After half an hour I was completely exhausted and thought I was going to faint. Exercise is such nonsense.
I recently watched an interesting youtube video about the aestethic frutiger aero. It's and even though I'm too old to have any nostalgic bonds to it (it feels like it was just yesteryear it was everywhere) I quite enjoy it. Here's my favorite frutiger aero pictures so far:
2023-10-12 Thursday
♫ Cortex - The Freaks (Spinal Injuries, 1983)
These last days have been all about the nerdy stuff, for sure. I've repaired a Wii console that wouldn't load discs properly, I've further configured the inofficial shmup tailored download of Retroarch called Shmuparch, I've spent a few hours in Metal Slug (another game in my aforementioned video game book club)... Just video games in general. It's been great. I was also reminded how cool old shoot 'em up posters, artwork and start screens were back then. I mean just look at this:
I still have to finish the piece I'm writing on my dog. It's been six months since I had to put her down and it's been hell, let me tell you. I still have no idea how the piece will turn out but I'm hoping it'll be something people can learn from and that it won't be pitch black.
2023-10-10 Tuesday
♫ Physique - The Evolution Of Combat (2019)
I finally purchased an arcade stick for my Nintendo Switch! It was a long time coming since that's my prefered way to control my shoot 'em ups and over the months I've amassed quite a few of them on that platform. I went with the 8BitDo Arcade Stick since it's stylish as all hell and strikes just the right balance between quality and bang for buck.
It's not the greatest lever I've ever felt in it but it's good enough and easy to replace with a Seimitsu one if I should so desire in the future. The buttons are fine and I don't think I'll be replacing them at all. To my big relief it didn't add any noticable input delay either, so overall this is a wonderful upgrade to my Nintendo Switch gaming!
2023-10-08 Sunday
♫ Kasshuve - Dummedagen Kommer (2023)
Today I had a discussion with an online friend of mine about the so called "extreme political correctness" that supposedly exists out there. More precisely how I'm torn on the subject.
I never really felt it was a real thing. I often hear about these uptight people not being able to tolerate anything and them bending over backwards to please their cancel culture and so on... But I never met one in real life. It almost feels like they're made up by someone that needs that narrative to be able to push their own shitty views. I'm pretty politically correct myself (in the sense that I'm trying not to be oppressive), but I'm also not a dick and if someone says something offensive (about a marginalized group for example, I mean as punks we're all pretty offensive by default) I'll absolutely let it slide. Because I know they don't mean any harm and I'm able to read the room.
The amount of political correctness I'm familiar with on a daily basis is mostly a matter of learning and changing. Like when (it's bound to happen) someone is misgendered or something like that, perhaps using a common word that's been shown to be derogatory to a group of people, then people around them either explain how it's not acceptable or just let it go depending on the context. Being able to tell the difference between a mistake and malicious intent. That's the level most of my friends are at (the only time they really bite back is if someone uses an obvious sexist/racist/fascist/homophobic etc slur).
I started up Days Gone yesterday and I'm already a few hours in. It seems to be a very good game, but time will tell. I've heard the meat of the game is in the interaction with the NPC:s, that the main story plot isn't what's carrying the game. The technical problems it had at launch (people were not happy) seems to have been patched as everything is fine (a few weird frame drops at times but that's it). Absolutely made for a controller, steering the bike with a keyboard was awkward as all hell.
2023-10-06 Friday
♫ OutRun OST (1986)
So, I recently looked up the Saint Helena Island website after a friend of mine guessed it was going to be right up my alley (weird subject, yesterweb design, curious things everywhere). What he thought I'd be into though was communication with the island, but I found something more interesting: Tungi.
You see, on this island they grow Opuntia ficus-indica, usually known as prickly, or cactus, pear. The local St Helena Distillery, which happens to be the most remote distillery in the world, is using these fruits to make a local spirit called Tungi. Why Tungi? Well, tungi is simply the name locally given to the cactus pear. The distillery started producing this spirit when the plant was introduced on the island in 1850, but was then called 'prickly pear whisky'. During the years the process has been refined and sometime during this the name Tungi was applied.
I wish I was able to read more about their product but their real website (the one linked earlier goes to kind of a tourist information site) is almost always not responding. Probably because of the remoteness of the island (which lead our attention to it in the first place). Will I ever get to taste this drink? Who knows. It isn't for sale in Sweden at least, that's for sure.
Edit: Stayed up too late again
2023-10-05 Thursday
♫ Uncurbed - Mental Disorder (1994)
I realized I wanted to share with my fleeting thoughts as well, not just the ones that make it into a completed project. I'm going to work in an hour so I'll keep this first entry brief.
Realms of the Haunting. I've been playing the 1996 MS-DOS game Realms of the Haunting for the last week or so. It's part of my "book club but for video games" and it's not my pick so it's a new love. Sure it's dated as all heck and there's a lot of sections that make no sense (level design, what is that?!) but it's got this... this feeling you know? When it shines, it really shines. The aura around the game is a mix of Dark Souls, Tomb Raider, Diablo and any of the games built in the engine Build, pretty much. However this is built in one of Gremlins own engines used in a previous game. I highly recommend checking it out if you like hidden gems among older games.