Week 13
Week 13 passed away without any chaotic or forever traumatizing events. It all started on Monday this week when my cousin and company were supposed to arrive, but didn't. I woke up late, feeling lazy, the sun shining, invisible clouds probably soaring through an open sky. My mom was downstairs in the kitchen listening to the radio, as always, mentally working her way through all the chores and cooking that care-taking of guests involved. I was down eating breakfast, speaking to my mom in between spoonfuls of muesli and interesting radio-sessions when the phone rang. Twas my cousins mother Anki, who reluctantly called to tell us that her David, my cousin, was sick and sleeping. On Saturday her husband Rolf was sick and vomiting all over the place. They had thus decided not to accept out invitation that day in fear of dirtying our otherwise flawless house. She asked if they could come the day after, and it was decided. But yet again they never made it, this time she called even further in advance telling us that she was sick. And so the daily sickness trilogy passed without guests.
Monday went by and I walked under the clear blue sky, daydreamt and spent a portion of the day went in front of the screen just like any human bean. I worked a little with translations, me and my dad went out for some test driving, I took a trip to Jakobsberg to buy sun flower seeds for the birds and meet-up with my buddy bear to collect three films he had borrowed and that I now had to send to a customer. Like I told you last week. We talked for about half an hour before my train started rolling away and I had to jump on it. Overall the day flew by quickly, I was a bit stressed about all the projects I had going this week, but still sane and assembled. My pile of newspapers arrived this day as well. Which is highly unusual since they usually arrive every Tuesday, and even more unusual since Monday was a holly holiday day and almost nobody else was out working. I had planned on stopping by the bank in Jakobsberg, but they were closed, and so were most of the other shops there. The pile of newspapers was twice as big as usual this week, packed with extra commercials for the happy subscribers. It's a free magazine, so there are no sobscribers, but I suppose they can always unsubscribe if they're misspleased. Two customers had in fact been misspleased, with me. It seems like I had been missing two mailboxes the past two or three weeks, so I was extra thorough when I handed them out this time. And I found the two missing boxes, one of them hiding in a bush the other one around a previously unseen corner.
Tuesday arrived, and the morning started late. David, my cousin, apparently feeling much better than before, came by and we played Worms Armageddon for a few hours. I had previously designed a couple of levels that I was exited about playing but unfortunately the game fucked up every time I tried to open them. Shame, they were pieces of art. You can view them right here (soon, will upload them this afternoon), and if you figure out a way to get the program to open them, send me a note. I think it has something to do with the DPI, but I can't seem to change the DPI without the screen resolution going ballistic as well. Regardless, I had a pile of new levels just waiting to be played (made by others than me) that we made our way through, and then left for the movies. We saw Arn - Tempelriddaren, a Swedish movie about a Swedish knight that met Saladin himself under the Christian crusade by way of Jerusalem back in the days. It had it's good parts, and it started out amazing, but then they decided to travel back in time and follow the growing up of our named hero, which was a little less exiting. Overall it was still worth watching though. I had been promised a free meal by Anki as well, but I never received it, so me and David traveled back home. Me to me. Him to him. I tried getting some translation work done this day, but I wasn't motivated at all, so not much happened. I browsed around the net a little, worked a little, watched a little.
Wednesday came and I woke up late, as all other days this week. I ate breakfast and rode out on my bicycle to hand out the magazines. I didn't make it all the way through them before I had to head home, take a quick shower, and run off to the train-station on a trip to bypass David and head for the Bowling Alley. We talked, walked and bowled for an hour. It's been about half a year since the last time we bowled, so it was fun, but apparently lots of other annoying kids were having a lot of fun as well and my concentration was thrown off balance. It's not easy to focus with people running around you laughing, talking loud and filling the line of bowling balls to the very limit with ones they didn't even use. I feel old, but I've always played in nice quite professional arenas before, even when I was smaller, so that's how I play best. Last time I was ranked four in the high-scores, this time I wasn't even on it. A bit disappointing, but it was still fun. We headed back after that and I had him help me hand out the remaining newspapers before we ate dinner, played worms, and (he) headed home. He wasn't much help with the newspapers though, he tumbled off his bike on an icey puddle, managed to get about 3 mailboxes filled while I made 30 and even though he had the bike without dubs he had trouble keeping up. This at a low pace, but regardless, it was fun dragging him around. Seeing him moan in agony and desperation, or just lag behind in laziness. I noted a pick up of pace as soon as I uttered the words that we were heading back home.
Then came Thursday, a day spent walking in the wild, returning books to the library, handing out the remaining magazines and translating. I forgot to mention that a row of apartments were closed the day before this day, apparently doors sealing shut at 18, so I had to take care of those this day. My back was killing me and my legs felt numb, so I suppose the whole bowling and dubbed cycling experience had taken more strength than I expected. I stretched twice, eased up muscular tensions. I watched two movies as well, unplanned events. I hadn't planned on doing anything else until I finished the translation, but things always keep piling up before it. Not that I don't want them to... anything but translation. Specially 8300 character poker translation. I don't regret taking on this translating job, it's an easy $45 for me, but it's a pain in the ass getting through. I took the job claiming that I was an expert at poker as well (obviously to have a better chance in getting the job) even though I know nothing of the sport. The article author doesn't know very good English either, which makes translation even harder. But I've learned a lot, and this day managed to finally get through the third one. Only one article remaining. :)
Friday. Yay, up at nine, lie in bed, stare at roof, look at sky, ponder about future, wonder about newgrounds, think about 12z, scribble down some poetry, start computer, bathroom, breakfast - simple double sandwich with sardines and majonese + coffee with cardamom and chili pepper. Then a few hours translating Flatpress and the remaining poker articles, then a walk, then more working. I made my way through the translations, sent them in, watched a few films, worked on my site, woot woot. Then came Saturday, the day that my cousin + company finally arrived for their previously scheduled but abandoned visit. We spent a steady eight hours playing Worms until he left and I watched 5 movies before falling into a deep sleep. Then there was Sunday. Sunny. Summer. I spend the day walkin round outside and working on my website, newgrounds, etcetc.
Other than that I've spent my time posting at the 12z.com (where I've recently become a part of site history&super mod btw, as well as opened a few galleries, modified my profile and reached 300 posts in just a weeks time. Note that this is a small forum, so that many posts really is an achievement). Not that I'm not a stat-whore, haha, you know that. I'm aiming for the monthly $15 reward for the most active user too, but I've grown to like the place too, so I'll stay afterwards as well, just not as extremely active as I am now. Anyhow, I also created a nifty script that does the opposite of the scripts that countdown remaining characters in posted messages. This one counts up. It's a form and a counter to which you can easily copy text from a document and paste in the box to see how many characters it contains. I needed something like this myself to see if the articles my client had given me really were only 8300 characters ( which they really were, even less, amazingly ) so I threw it together based on a script from dynamicdrive with the opposite function. If you ever need it you can find it over at cyberdb.org/cc/ . CC stands for Character Count.
I also have some pretty big news this week. I've reworked the old site management system for CyberDB, which has been growing a little out of date the past few months, and switched to a new one. The new one has search engine friendly URL's, an even easier interface to use than the previous, still works with flat-files, has a built-in page management system (which I didn't have before), a better search function and loads much faster. I won't remove the old one, all the entries will still be there, you just won't be seeing them on the site anymore. You'll notice that the website layout has changed pretty much as well, and now has more focus on the blog than it did before. Categories are displayed in the menu, as well as the search bar, and comments are once again allowed, woot. I've moved over all the old posts as well, which was needless to say a real piece of work. I never would have known that I've been posting this much the past three years, phew. Well I have known, since there were stats on the archives page (and still are), but I never knew they'd take so long to move. They're done now though, and the formatting/spelling has been gone through as well (even more work, sheezuz).
I managed to get quite a long weekly blog written this week, eh? Probably the longest one so far, heh, it's almost like an entire chapter out of a book. Maybe I should actually compile these blog-posts and make a book out of them? Lollage. For personal reading pleasure, a possession for future raining days with memories bent and forgotten. Friends and family dead and rotten. Back hunched and cheap lunch and clothes of thin cotton. I've been thinking bout my pension I think I didn't mention, it's gotten my attention, and I'm thinking... what then? Because I save no money, I walk when it's sunny and I have no beliefs that I'll be living again. I just hope that I earn somewhere along the way, enough to let me live when I still can't see the day. When I'm not happy enough, when I'm not caught in between, adventures like a twisted spinal spleen. Life can be heavy. Life can be mean. So I collect machetes and just continue breathing, being, seeing, sleeping, leaping, over buildings like a jester. Symbolic. The future.
