Flobots dawg. It's the second song of theirs I hear, and already a favorite...

Do you want a free game? First one to hit this link claims it. ;)

Let's start the New Year with a bit of adventure!

I'm sitting on a boat.

More specially in a cozy one-man cabin on a boat, with a bedside wallpaper of waves and fluttering curtains, and a round mirror where the window would be had there been one, on my way from Stockholm to Mariehamn.

We'll be arriving there at 6:45 tomorrow, and heading back an hour later.

Since they no longer allow you to bring food with you on cruises such as this one - and screen all bags for food (and more dangerous items) when you board, I actually booked a table at the breakfast buffet tomorrow, which I've now learned costs about 30% more on the weekend than it does on regular week days.

I could have booked this on a regular week day! Had I known I would have...

Then again buddy Bear did lend me his commuter card while he's away in the Philippines, and so I can currently get to and from said cruise ship at no extra cost this weekend only.

That's why I booked the trip now rather than later.

I already knew breakfasts and other buffets on board are hella expensive though, and had thus planned to bring my own food with me. And then I read the boarding rules...

How carefully do they screen luggage?

If you don't happen to get stopped in the metal detector yourself you could smuggle through some food in your clothes. You don't need to remove your coat when you go through, and in winter everybody wears one. But if you do get stopped that'd be embarrassing. And a waste of food.

I brought a big bottle of water with me at least, and a few bars. The edible kind. Bringing your own bottle's supposedly OK, and the tap water's drinkable, so you can refill it easily. Bringing any other beverages or food for consumption in the cabin, is not.

They usually have great food on their buffets though.

If I had a regular full-time job - and a pay thereafter - it's something I'd look forward to. As it is I'm trying to save in all ways possible, on all things, whilst still living the life as much as possible, when opportunity presents me with for example overnight trips like this. Apart from the unexpected breakfast cost I'm actually cruising at basically no cost at all.

Viking Line are running a Christmas campaign until the end of February, where your ticket costs only the travel tax they have to pay per passenger and trip. All earnings they get via additional expenses, like food or tax-free.
It used to be they had trips like this entirely for free. Alas the government started taxing cruises too (they've been taxing all other means of transport for some time), and they're definitely racking in a lot of money on 'em. This boat is packed.

Most people come here to party. To get drunk, or dance, and/or overindulge on seafood buffets - though there are more families with kids here than I was expecting.

I took a few of these trips during the pandemic years too, when they were even cheaper, and became accustomed to ships full of mostly young people and drunks, the clientele they still had when most people were self-isolating, but this clique's pretty different! The customer base today comes in a great variety of ages, genders and ethnicities, with a surprising breadth of individually unique human beings represented. It's pretty cool.

I came here to do neither of the above things myself. I'm here to get some time for myself in a cabin on a ship, shower lengthily wherest water and electricity is free, see how I sleep in a different bed - cause my own is torment, and sit by the laptop I'm typing this on and get some work done.

Problem #2 (#1 was breakfast): They do not have WiFi in these cabins!

For some reason the possibility they did not have this basic modern amenity we sometimes take for granted here, in this cage of steel beams and plates of metal that greatly deflect and limits outside microwave radiation and other similar interference never crossed my mind...

I'm stocked up on pods and movies for the night, but I'd really planned on doing a lot of work online too, at a comfortable speed, in my cabin on this here boat.

Before we left the harbor connectivity was OK, but the further away we get the more unstable it becomes, and it probably doesn't help that I have a cabin on the inner part of the ship, without a window.

It's probably a major factor actually.

With but a plate of glass between the cellphone and the outside world it'd be bound to pick up on plenty of masts. At least before we make it out to open sea...

On week days it seems you can get even window cabins at the same price (virtually no price at all, that is!) as the cheaper ones, but on weekends better cabins cost extra, and I'm not paying extra! No matter the cost.

So I've been doing my dues by this computer in sessions.

Sometimes I get up and stretch, or sit down and stretch. And then when the page I'm waiting on has loaded I move back to the computer aaand get something done! And then it's back to stretching again...

Or blogging. I started writing this after a more futile stretch of that surf and stretch routine, with too much stretch and too little surf.

Continually trying to connect to the net is probably really draining my cellphone battery, which has to act as wireless access point and provide the random bursts of wavy Internet I'm getting, but that's OK! Because there are two sockets on the desk, so I can charge both laptop and cellphone simultaneously, and waste the ship's electricity just as much as I'll be wasting their water with their shower later!

Getting some Wifi access points closer to the cabin areas may be a financially beneficial thing for them, but then again... do ships generate their own electricity too? Just like they pump in their own water?

They're really pretty incredible. These cruise ships. Like miniature cities; entirely self-sustaining. Closest thing to the walking worlds in Mortal Engines we may ever get...

I'm skipping back and forth between writing this blog and buying movie tickets right now btw. But the rebate code I've been using via ICA doesn't seem to be working either, so that may be a lost cause anyway...

Maybe I ought just get out and party huh? I'd planned on stopping by the tax-free store at least - be it just for a quick snack if I don't manage a night without one, or for something of greater value, that you can only really get at a good price on a ship like this...

My Internet's not loading at all right now y'all. And I've booked four cruises like this, with similar intentions. On two of them however I do have a window view! Looking forward to testing my connection then...

Time to get out and experience a cruise like it's intended to anywho.

Toodles.

Didn't get any Harry Mack track to start this year but this is just as good. :)

What a combo! My childhood meets the drummer everyone aspires to be.

Never sleep! At least not when Stewart Copeland plays LB.

Happy 2025!

This one finna be a vibe and lively! Let life be nice as these skies now lighting! The year full of adventure, all grand; exciting! When in times I'm tired, and in trials, I might sink. Climb up as the sparks shine! Depart this here dark mind!! Get out and then start rhyme!!! Some bad peeps leading the way these days. What a waste that eh. 2025? It's OUR TIME.

Let's start this with doodle and Cheer! If you want to peep Last Year's first post you can do that right here.

I hope Harry Mack posts something like this again, that was such a nice way to start the last one.

But he's a great way to start any day anyway. Always bringing smiles and good vibes everywhere his feet lead him, to the beach in Venice, where the trees are knee thin like the water's freezing (though I doubt it is).

The fireworks here are cracking again! And I am inspired. Like Harry Mack with a pen.

The year that's been?

I sped up in the blogging department again, with two more pages in the archives compared to 2023. :) I write more each year apparently, though each year I feel less and less like I do... ain't that some strange magic?

A large part of that's definitely thanks to Inktober and reviews though. I post quite a bit of those, and amped up my efforts a bit with the latter if naught the former compared to last.

I had all the more plans though. And I still have leftovers...

We actually hit the 2,000,000 word count just a few days ago - thanks to those reviews again! So that's like... 28.5 full books! That's cray cray. And when you compare it like that, imagine if I'd spent all this time actually writing books instead of blogging...

How many of those could've been bestsellers? How rich could I have been at this point?!

Who knows. And who cares! That's neither here nor there.

The comment count keeps increasing too. Shout-out my continual compadre in commentary @S3C, and on surprise occasions - like just now - @soulard. :) Wherever did @Biterrrr go though...

In the real world the wars still rage. In the online one I've watched less Yes Theory, and more stunts, and skits, and reactions...

I've succumbed to simpler things again, it seems.

I blame back issues, and look forward to a time where my posts will have less to do with anatomy, and more to do with say autonomy, or my bond to sea, or other interesting things.

I do still follow Çenet though. He recently explored the deepest cave in the world, that was pretty cool.

Did you know that a week underground easily has you go down around 10 kg, even if you eat plenty? The crux being, that if for example I was to attempt such a venture, I'd have to be in hella good shape before I attempt it, and would thus want to lose no more kilos when I'm down there.

There's a reason you can't be underground too long, with cold and exertion slowly but surely depleting your bodies' fat reserves no matter your diet.

There's no miracle cure for anything is there? No pain no gain. No loss without accomplishment. And less YT...

Though I'm not in great shape I've succumbed to a surprisingly small amount of ailments this year though. Maybe my microbiome's better at least. Maybe I'm eating better - I'm definitely not sleeping better. Whatever the reason for it I haven't had a cold for months now , even though I seem to be surrounded by sick people.

*pepper pepper*

Christmas went well, and I watched Interstellar at the cinema today.

I can't think of a better way end the year than with that. A spectacular trek through time and space, to remind us of the adventures we may miss when we self-bind in place, and let us face our fiends, and friends, and families in the best possible way... it's the 10th Year Anniversary of that friggin' masterpiece this year. Glad I got to relive it on the big screen.

I don't think anyone in the room didn't get teary-eyed.

Sat beside a dad and his cool emotionless teenage son, who initially didn't seem too happy about being there, and witnessed how good film truly transcends generations, and breaks everyone.

Maybe a plot like this is a special case though. It's like a glue for broken bonds. It's like the very fabric of family, and yet one of the most bad-ass and (theoretically) authentic space exploration movies of our time too...

Speaking of exploration: Though finances are currently at an ongoing all time low I have done a bit of traveling this year. Dublin went well, Åre went well, Gdansk and Barcelona too recently, and of course I've been back and forth between the city and civilized life and the wilder North throughout most of summer, and a fair bit of spring and autumn too...'

It's been a good year, all things considered.

Even if it oftentimes feels like I don't have time for anything, and that my life has somehow reached a stage where what my days contain is beyond my control.

It's not though. They're not! I'll start the New Year by reminding myself that I'm leading the charge after all, and head out on a few new adventures.

Just booked four cruises the next month... very favorable New Year pricing.

I started my resolutions post late this year, and it's getting late as I write this too. Almost two. The fireworks still pop occasionally outside, but I'm all out of energy... I'll be back tomorrow to better tend to these... posts.

2025! Let's give it all we got, so we then remember it the most, when it's o. Ver

^ Thought about doing something better with that O after a good night's sleep, but you know what? It's not so bad. The O rhymes. The O is also synonymous with a circle, as if to symbolize the cycle of life, and the year, to a smaller extent. And the 'Ver' that follows not only adds a word to the symbolism, but a new line. A blank slate. A new iteration. Another Version of the O, that is now over...

Long stretch? Let's hope the year that now brews is that too. :)

Happy New Year y'all!

So I skimmed through my resolutions from last year, as I do every year.

I seemed to have been at peace then. Wanting a clean slate, again, but accepting that I probably wouldn't get one. I'm there again today, wanting a clean slate, but maybe a mite bit less at peace with having seemingly even less of a clean slate this year compared to the slate I had at the end of the last one...

Emails still wait in my inbox. PMs await. Project folders line my desktop. I have dues left on my calendar - though I've plowed through a bundle the last week. My room's cluttered. My back's a mess. My life too, yes! But life does run on regardless.

Last year's dose of New Year-related enlightenment - in each day being as new a phase of time as each New Year - and in any stretch of time being as new as we make it, and just as equal and good an opportunity to get things done - rings true now too.

The thing that differs this year, maybe, is that I took a bath today. And helped out with dinner, since mom hadn't prepared anything special for the night, and of course you must have something at least a little bit extraordinaire in food to fare for a New Year. So I arranged some chanterelles with butter pepper and salt, some spicy spinach stew with cream, vegetarian siracha and lemon filets, sauce and drink and she a tray of baked root vegetables with honey and Rosemary. We had a good meal after all, though all this took an unexpected chunk of time out of the evening.

At midnight we'll cheer with a bubbly beverage, the snow's blowing in right now, and during a brisk walk earlier they were already shooting up fireworks! Which shows promise for tonight.

Though midnight here is a mere half an hour away as I type this and I haven't even done my yearly doodle yet, so I'll have to rush this resolutions post a bit. As per the point I was trying to get to above. Time seems in sparser supply this year, and I am thus probably a bit less at peace.

You can read last year's post here though (same link as above).

It's still relevant. I still have the same phone too. I still love it. I still ponder the same things all the same. And mom's getting alarmingly forgetful, which distracts. And then there's my back, which is also a notable distraction. That post's still relevant too...

Did I accomplish my goals though?

Read on...