I had a dream!
But my dream broke away,
And I had to scream.
I had a dream!
But my dream's not today,
Will it ever be?
I had a dream!
And it's out of this world,
It's so heavenly!
I had a dream,
Forget the sun and shade, I'll be every beam,
You'll remember me,
I had a dream.
Finally, here's an official, Very Merry Christmas to all!
Where does the time go?! I really planned to post this post on Sunday, and considering Christmas in Sweden is the 24th, and the following week is a blank slate with a surplus of free days (just one day of work this week of posting), I should have had all the time in the world to publish this on time. But here I am again, a few days behind schedule, posting this at the last minute of the day after throwing it away on other, less important tasks.
I planned to post a post on the darkest day of the year as well (the 21st), but it's getting lighter now and no longer feels relevant. The planned post about the recent Yahoo! hack doesn't feel relevant either, or the one about the very friendly notification they sent out informing users about it (written by a very well-versed Bob Lord - cool name too). The Yahoo Key doesn't feel relevant either, nor Eminem's Partners In Rhyme: The True Story of Infinite (link). And btw, have you ever seen DooM played on a chainsaw? I've had that stuff lying around my textfile forever. Finally, away with that. There's plenty of other things to do away with before the New Year starts, but oh so little time left now...
Let's jump straight to the big business though. The past weeks summary, summarized in as small a character amount as possible in the effort of saving time after this long-running introduction with irrelevant and unnecessary filler writing about unwritten and unnecessary writing now irrelevant: it's been a great week.
On Monday I picked up a present at my secondary part-time job, on Tuesday we had a little Christmas get-together with presents at my primary part-time job, on Wednesday I worked my second-to-last work day of the year at my primary part-time job (the last one was this Wednesday), and the day after I worked the (probably) last day at my secondary part-time job, and on Friday I spent most of the day playing board games with a cousin/family, and trying to catch up as best as I could with the computer soon as I got home. Come Saturday I took a trip to a nearby warehouse that's shutting down (Karlsson's) and selling out all remaining produce and product at 50% whatever-price-they-had, but the checkout queue stretched through half the store, and there wasn't really anything there I needed anyway. So no deal.
And after that, it was Christmas!
After an intense three-hour session pf packing gifts, we gathered together around a candle-lit table for some good Janssons frestelse, salad, and French Cider, and opened all those presents in a fraction of the time we'd spent packing them.
I got some cool stuff, like a meter-long roll of cinnamon bark, and pants, comics, consumables, etcetc. I will not promise a post about all of that because I probably won't get around to posting it, but I have taken a few pictures for future reference. Maybe for a series of belated Christmas Aftermath posts, like the ones I did back in the '08 and '09 heyday? Good times, and as far as Christmas times go we had a great time this year as well. They're a bit more eventless than they used to be, but calm and cozy Christmases with the most of the family gathered aren't bad either. It's slowly becoming the new tradition. And soon, a similarly calm and traditional New Year. Hopefully we'll be taking a quick trip to Östersund to celebrate with the other part of the family early on in the New Year too. With snow.
To note another notable task of the past week: an old Gangnam Style post of mine was featured at 100 Words earlier this week. That was pretty cool.
I've also had some trouble with loading times on the site (probably no relation - I doubt I get very much traffic via 100w). DDoS attacks? They seem to be affecting everyone now. My site was loading so slow I feared it would go down, but it went alright. As far as I can tell. I opened up a Cloudflare account with the intention of solving those issues, but the process wasn't all as obvious as I hoped, and there seemed to be some potential issues with keeping certain parts of the site (like the admin panel) away from the crawler. Maybe later. For now I'm tweaking the site as best I can to speed things up a bit. It's much overdue.
Oh, and the One Piece manga? I was up at book 48 yesterday, so it appears I'm still keeping the 16 books/week pace, though reaching a point where I might jump off soon. Some of my Christmas gifts require reading too. I'm looking forward to that, but feeling a bit low on time...
I've had no (notable) headaches this week. The weather's been decent; the day after Christmas was particularly nice, though we did get a Green Christmas - relevant logotype above. I'm still getting less exercise than I'd like, but with the New Year maybe I'll put some useful resolutions into play again. That other promised project update, and Project 2016 finale... coming soon. Well, Project 2016 additions are coming soon - that other one is done! Waited with this post until I'd managed to upload that shizzle, so here they are, finally, both of them.
Without delving too much into the current week - which I'll hopefully post a separate post about within a day or two, I'd like to conclude with some well-wishes and a creatively crafty; catchy:
Happy Holly Days and Holidays and All The Days and All That's Great! :)
On the blog I've posted some stuff, 6 reviews, and here's last week.
CDB Updates:
Covered in scribbles,
False tattoos that I hide on my skin - that I'm hiding within.
I scrawl them on my flesh - instead of in it. Wait! I ain't finished!
I thought I'd take the train.
It took a lot of time before I started adding that apostrophe to aint,
I used to look at the world with a naive vocabulary, like: isn't this quaint?
Now I see the horrors and they haunt me till I flaunt around in a cape: Batboy go insane,
And fall on my foot till it's sprain't. Verbal abuse heavy until I can't bear the pain and faint.
I used to be anything, but this life aint for the faint of heart.
It's routine. Ice cream you scream. It's not a sweet but it's tart.
I started hard, but I'm going soft. I got the bars, but don't make cross.
Because I want to be happy, and religion is all such a loss. Except maybe Buddhism.
But that's just me. Don't stone me please. Don't maul my bones till they're not stone but seeds,
That wither on the earth - a layer of whitening on the ground like fluor for your dentures,
But all we keep doing with this world is paving our way until it's cement Earth,
That's our seed. That footprint in the wet stone - that's our creed.
Covered in scribbles,
False tattoos on the Earth, but after we're gone they'll just be a riddle,
Something to remember us by, but no one will dig up the bones where we lie,
If the sun swallows us whole. Like a pie. Or a bowl of... frosting.
We used to have beginnings! We used to have endings. We used to have meanings.
But we've lost them - our walls slipped down in a sea of wet paint.
Keep rowing your boat, up the streams and downloads - against the wind that keeps blowing your load,
But I aint. A coward of scribbles.
I don't want to be another guy...
Sitting in my cubicle feeling I gotta fly.
I don't want to be another gleam...
Just a little reflection of a dream.
I don't want to be downstairs...
I want to I want to be up up here!
I don't want to be waiting in line,
I want to be leading the queue the whole time.
Wasn't too long ago I learned about Brian Singer, via the X-Men movies (he's worked with most of the good ones)... and then I watched this, and his name pops up first thing as the credits roll! It'd be easy to explain why this was such a movie with that one surprise appearance, and how it managed to incorporate an old tall tale like Jack And The Bean Stalk into a more modern day time (it does take place in the old day... but a more relatable; modernized old day, you know), and how what seems like children's lore is farmed into something different entirely. Because this was awesome.
The special effects weren't the most awesome part, but having sub-par effects for the short introductory story-mode animation was a good way of making the real CGI shine in comparison, and everything about everything but the giants looks incredibly authentic. Soldiers being thrown about like toys. The oil. The fire. The stone and ash and destruction, and those massive enemies looming high above.
It's an adventurous fantasy tale with a cliche but well-founded romance between a farm boy and a princess. Sweet, brutal, simple and imaginative all at the same time. When it's all over... I'm positively surprised. Didn't think a children's tale could be this good, but then again it's not just Jack and the bean stalk, is it? It's Jack, with a twist.
rated 3/5: not bad
Train paves the way on these gray days of mayhem I make sense but only in my brain.
Frail ways I stray till these days end but may men
Realize their way before their grave.
And I stall,
Don't we all.
And I fall,
Don't we all.
And I cope,
On my hope,
Hit a note,
And I'll float.
The train paves a way on these gray days of mayhem,
I make sense, but only when I'm sane.
