And so I'm off! To the Northern Norths. To summer. Maybe I'll stop by some day.

I guess I'll leave revising those most recent last minute posts till I get back huh, and go through the ones I didn't have time to post in the first place, and upload this thing first of all. Public reminder. For now though I'm leaving my dues behind. Time to look onward. Time for... good times.

Unless you happen to live in Saudi or a similarly sublimely sunny place: it's a short season, so enjoy it while it lasts! Steal the breeze, kneel on trees, see the seas, feel at ease...

Have a good one y'all! Peace.

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. Philosophy is wondering if that means ketchup is a smoothie.

I guess it was the peak of the wave with the fall behind it after all.

I totally fell off the track again after this. It's been a hectic week, and then some, but not a bad one. And then some. Maybe I wrote one of those way-too-long posts again. Took me like two weeks to get through it all.

Since last Sunday (started writing this a couple days ago) I've managed those six reviews though, and more, and hhere's that promised blog. Plus a bunch of new reviews on old movies like this one. Which are giving me a new dilemma: should I base the movie ratings on the main list on the original review score, or the latest one?

This one differs - as do some others.

Anyway: since the last longer blog I've done some things. My nephew stopped by this past weekend, and we toured the city - initially by Voi. It's one of a select few electric scooter brands that are taking over over here, and let me tell you they are fun! I understand why they're spreading.

But they're also hella dangerous, way too easy to accelerate, and brake, and since you pay per minute it seems a lot of people just go as fast as they can with them and don't stop for anything.

Plus they're not just parked by walls or corners, but often in the middle of the sidewalk, which is a bit troublesome for blind people. And other people. They seem to be spreading so fast that public safety regulations can't keep up.

Supposedly they say it might be good to wear a helmet too, but I think I've yet to see anyone wield one. We certainly didn't.

At least they only run at 20 km/h, right beside and often in the middle of and sometimes straight over highly trafficked inner city roads. Hmm.

But it was fun. We managed to stop by Bergianska trädgården as well, Nationalmuseet, Millegården - including the cafe - amazing place if you're ever in Stockholm, Restaurang Tang, Blueberry; stayed up till three each night and cooked up a delicious brunch each morning. Both of them.

Twas a quick visit, but probably sounds way more tiring than it was. I actually felt more energetic than I have both the week before and the week after - better bedtime habits or no. My bedtime habits are hella crap right now actually. I'm trying to fix that. Check the post time to see if I managed.

I celebrated midsummer with some relatives the weekend before this great city tour, on two days, and attained some short-lived revelations then too on how hanging out with people you like to hang out with actually feels way more important than chipping away at the site, and hanging around at home alone.

But also how sitting by the site, late night, after hanging out with said buddies seems even better. So conclusively I just really need to find a balance; live in the best of both worlds. Both the intro and extro.

So midsummer was great too, and on the second day this happened.

I closed the vents and wrote a song, and hoped I'd have it recorded before summer but since then time has just blazed by. It makes you realize how fleeting everything is though; that al of this might disappear just like that. This site. The house. Everything. You never know. Better make the most of your life while you're living it, and don't get fixated on things that won't be of any benefit to you in the long run.

Especially if they're not even of benefit in the short one.

About that 5G thing? I'm still keeping myself informed. Watched this interview just now (it's in Swedish), and borrowed an EMF meter a couple weeks back to measure the house. Ca 0.100 - 0.200 mW on the lower floor, going towards 0,400 by the wall to our neighbor (assuming WiFi). Upstairs that jumped to around 0,400 mW in the hallway, and the walls towards the train tracks, with closer to 0,600 towards our neighbors, again. Going around the rooms the signal jumped occasionally, spiking at over 1,500, and sometimes around 0.700 or 0.800 mW. My bed was alright - less than 0.200, and ground level was pretty low too.

Close to the shungite stones I've imported the measurements dropped to 0.200 or less - even by the strongest sources. They work!

Also that Sting concert I spoke about earlier was CRAZY. It was so packed that even at the very back people tried to push themselves further in, but just couldn't get anywhere. I stood in a line for fish n' chips for over an hour and didn't even get halfway - and then the show started - so I gave up, managed to make my way to a safer spot at the edge of the crazy crowd and enjoyed the music. Spoke to and brushed up against so many more people than I usually do at these events too. Humans are herd animals after all.

Just can't not think about the massive doses of electromagnetic radiation going on in those enclosed spaces too... actually, for this particular concert maybe I did forget about that. It was special. I've been to a few other albeit not nearly as packed ones before and after, and the movies too. I'm a gold member for another year now (let's see if anyone catches that reference).

Sting managed to time the show in the middle of a heatwave too btw.

That definitely contributed to the peepwave.

In other news CDB has moved servers. I didn't get any warning prior to the move, but they overlapped server connections during the DNS propagation, so for all of y'all it should have been seamless. I just had to copy over some content I'd edited right before the move since they didn't notify me - hope you didn't lose any comments @S3C! They redirected everything on the back-end right away so I couldn't check.

I've cut my hair too. By myself! First time ever. Was trying to precision cut the back of my head after I'd successfully fixed up the rest of it - and I just couldn't do it! Started trimming a bit and... whoops, a bit too far. Evened out the line a bit more and then... whoops, bad angle on the side. Just have to even out that line a bit more and... this is hella hard to do when you're holding your hand behind your head, and holding in a mirror behind your head for guidance; looking at that mirror in the mirror in front of you.

Fortunately I gave up before I totally messed up the back of my head, took the bike into town an hour before I had to leave for the midsummer party, the barber was fortunately free, and open for business, and he fixed it free of charge! Phew. Real thankful. I'll get a full haircut there someday. Promise. And I shall master cutting my own hair properly too, however that might be done. Maybe the barber might advice... even if it clearly goes against his financial interests.

If the past three weeks were summed up with three words it'd be: work, backups, and tiredness. Stress. A brewing birthday anxiety. I really can't wait for vacation right now, and just leaving all of this behind me. Peace of mind. Too much has been picking up all too quickly, though I also just received an honorable podcast invite and a new collaboration thing that I am a bit reluctant to leave. Unfortunate timing, but hopefully they can wait. When I get back: I'm getting on track.

Moral of this post though: don't write 36 movie reviews in a week. Not unless you actually have one or two free days to go through them. If you don't it just takes so much longer.

But that's all good now. Stress levels are high but I feel I've managed the most important things at this point, just need to revise some of these recent rambles, post posting... if time runs out maybe I'll postpone that until I'm back, and maybe I'll post again before I leave.

If not: Have an amazing summer! Rest up. Relax. Do what you need to, and want to, but don't forget to breath too.

The season's short and fleeting, but peace be with you! Greetings.

Like Marvel, the LEGO studios seem to be on a roll with their franchise these days.

The combination of toned down violence and violent superheros/villains/others appears to be the perfect combo, and similar to Marvel they have a combination of pace, wit, and characters with charisma that just provide a premise for greatness every single time - not that it's all that many times thus far - hope they don't stumble.

Not only that, but they manage to fit in a decade's worth of Batman movies in a single one, with not only all the trademark pals like Robin and Batgirl, but also the old ones, and the villains, and even a cast from entirely different worlds, like Sauron and Voldimort. And more. There's definitely more.

But maybe the script's the best thing. It's just so well written. It's full of nuances along with the regular jokes and build-up, like when Count Dracula responds to a proposal with count me interested!

Get it? Wonder how many got that.

All in all there wasn't a dull moment here, but maybe the pace is also a shortcoming, because there's barely a moment of breathing room, and then it's done. It's a blast all the way, but it's also like it was designed for people with ADHD. Or kids.

Maybe that's obvious, but I'm neither of those, and I feel like they could've slowed it down just a little, even if I had a blast with it. All the way. I'm not the most intended audience but still. I love it.

 rated 5/5: friggin awesome

The special effects may not have stood the test of time perfectly, but who cares about that?! This movie's just amazing.

It may have been the one that started the whole Kung Fu parody sports movie wave, or it may not have been, but it's definitely one of the ones I remember as the most iconic, on par with greats such as Kung Fu Dunk and Rumble.

That last one wasn't really sports, but still.

The movie follows the fate of 'Mighty Steel Leg' Sing, a Kung Fu artist who aspires to spread to wealth of Kung Fu whichever way he can, and one day runs into the cripple, former 'Golden Leg' Fung, who's looking for a team.

They crack their heads together with Iron Head, and off they go on a grand adventure, which turns out both as hilarious as it is exciting, and amazing, and just great in every possible way!

Maybe it's not for everyone though - if you're a fan of realism, or a peace-loving pacifist, or just don't like Asian comedy - but for me this is just the kind of movie that has me laughing like crazy. I love it. The length is just right, the story progresses at a quick pace without feeling rushed, and the relations make you smile. Effects to match and it'd be one for the hall of fame. But know thy name: Shaolin Soccer. You're quite the game.

 rated 4.5/5: almost awesome

If it weren't for the Transformer sound effects, that atmospheric disturbance that rolls in as soon some heavy CGI battle is taking place (you really can't camouflage it like that guys), the shaky came, Madison, and a somewhat superficial plot... this was awesome.

The battles are awesome. The creatures are awesome.

Godzilla's a weird kind of hero, weird not only because he's an unorthodox one - he really doesn't look like the hero-type. But it's good that he is, cause he's the only one with the power to really save the world, with the help of humans and their Godzilla-boosting weaponry this time around.

I'm disappointed with the effects though, and I feel like they didn't catch the size ratio as well as they could have. There's so much shaky came and close-up footage that you never capture the contrasts when there's something going on, and when they pan out to give that awe-inspiring feeling of holy-shit-the-Titans-are-big, then there's always stormy weather, ice, water vapor or other natural ambience in the way - and though the city fights no doubt required a huuuge amount of work to set up, I'm still disappointed in their simplicity. The surface textures on the skyscrapers sometimes come off blank and artificial. They don't capture reflections. They don't detail debris. The atmospheric distortion is cool too, but it's so clearly a veil for a detail level they either didn't have a budget for, were too lazy for, or for some other reason chose to leave out.

I'm also not super into the final song. It was good, but not the polished piece of instrumental mastery it feels like greatness such as this deserves. Much like the movie itself. I love it but... maybe there was just too much hype after all. I bug down on details. It's just not polished enough; I don't see the shine I hoped to.

 rated 3.5/5: not bad at all