Another week bites the duster, and I am a couple of days late with my summary. Again. Busy? Yeah.

The week was a good one at first: sunny scenes as never seen before, the sun gleaming behind gray clouds, making way for greater days, and then came Saturday morning and a weekend of rain and cold. A good buddy called. His grandma had just died. After a long battle her body finally gave up, failed to take in further nutrients, and thus: RIP Inga. We took a walk, pondering life and death and the lack of sunshine. A somber squander.

It might seem stationary above, but I say that RIP with the deepest regard. I've visited quite a few times, so she was pretty close. Always sad when people you know go, and cancer seems like an all too common cause nowadays. Is it the food? The radiation? The toxic fumes in our atomic sphere? Maybe the whole trilogy? Living here on Earth's becoming a dangerous practice.

It's not been all bleak news and dark days though: I was at an e-commerce fair this Thursday, on behalf of my job: chatting, eating popcorn, and hopefully collecting a satisfactory chunk of information that could potentially benefit the company while I was there. Kind of nervous about that (I didn't need to be). I didn't stay long, since there weren't that many businesses relevant to ours, but I think I got the essentials down (yes I did). It was a short but good trip. That's all.

Compared to the regular week this one was irregularly much work. With that I mean work away from home: at the office at which I work part-time with web-shops and stuff. Four days in a row... which I know seems like little compared to the full-time jobs most people have, but I live a life on the side that takes up an equal - if not bigger - chunk of time, and usually spend my time with homework whenever I'm not at work, so thus it's been a busy stretch of days. Not sure I've managed to post any of my poems for the week, but I did manage a bunch of contemplative posts and stuff, and 6 more reviews. Here's last week.

And hey, did you notice the page count just jumped to 600? It's cause the anime archives are now all nice and integrated. There's not so much recent writing about anime on the blog, for self-explanatory reasons (I mean I don't watch that much now, and when I do I don't review each individual episode), but if you flip a few hundred pages back there's bound to be some excessive streams of episode imagery in between these regular posts... hope it doesn't interfere with the regular-reading experience. Though whoever browses all the way back to page 401 anyway?

Well, that's it for the week, and we are well and well into this one. Yell, if you feel like shouting! Cause life isn't well-spent: unless you vent. Ciao for the belated post of the week; until next one.

Another week passed by fast! I've posted a ton of stuff on the blog and then some more, 6 reviews, and here's last week.

I've kept going with my stream of site improvements, and wish I could say I've finally gone through all comments, but going through the older ones I discovered some messed up posting orders on old posts that I still need to fix. Also some missing comments, I think (some responses don't make sense), but since the old engine is since long dead and gone there's not much I can do about those. Which is a bit annoying.

Also wish I had ported over all the comments on the 'Let's Count To A Million' post from back in the day... it probably seemed like a gargantuan task back then, but it was just the one post, and it would've added a bunch to the comment count. Oh well, I've at least gone through all comments since the site was moved from CuteNews to WordPress, and fixed a few bugs/other things while I was at it.

Stuff like:

• Anime posts are back on the frontpage again.
• Comment numbering is fixed, again.
• I've started moving old posts from 'blog' to relevant subcategories, though there's still plenty to move (looks like the stats page only counts posts in the main 'blog' category - where there aren't supposed to be any posts, they're all supposed to be sorted within the subcategories. I'll fix that later).
• Sorted and fixed a bunch of old tags, shortcodes, classes etc.
• Other stuff? I don't recall it all.

On a random note, Fuck This Jam hasn't changed in 2 years! It still looks the same as when I posted about it back in 2014. And speaking of 2014, that was definitely the best year for comments on this blog. Most of the 'most commented posts' seem to be from that year. And btw, what's up with female actresses calling themselves actors? Isn't actress the feminine alternation for actor?

In more lifely news, I've been hard at work trying to get a tan before summer kicks in for real, walking a bit more than usual, and even jogging a couple of days. The first run was hellish, but the second time I felt like I was in better shape already! Also took a tour of the city this Friday, after work, before meeting up with a buddy come back from vacation.

I walked by the water for almost two hours straight to fill a gap of time, after my plans at waiting Kung Fu Panda 3 at the movies were foiled because, apparently, you have to buy or book a movie ticket 45 minutes before the movie starts!! Whats up with that?! I then tried getting an ice cream at Burger King, but their ice cream machine was broken, and I didn't eat anything later on either because out of the blue a sea gull pissed on my hand. What the hell, gull?! And there was no place to wash hand. It was a good walk though. Sunshine and stuff.

Well, that was Friday, and otherwise I've been working - at work and with site work, and the week just passed by in a Flash. Pico Day was this Saturday, and though I did have something planned I didn't really have the energy to post it on that particular day. Time flies, like a shitty seagull. Until next week.

A day late again! Always a day late! And at the end of a late day too! Damn! On that topic: I was just made aware Jean-Claude Van Damme played a role in the ancient Street Fighter movie. It's supposedly incredibly cheesy. Added to my watchlist.

I've been doing some work on the site this week, mostly with comments. Ever since I ported the comments from the old blog engine to this one back in 2006, there have been a bunch of old comments with a bunch of emoticon codes in them, and no emoticons, since I decided not to use emoticons on this blog. I replaced some with text-based counterparts, but some weren't so easy to replace. I mean, what's the textual interpretation of or ?

So, I´ve finally turned those old codes into working emoticons using this set of smileys I made back in the day, and added a row of them above the comment area too for easy access. There's more, but I tried to keep it to just a small selection of the most usable types:

Had some trouble with the smileys of one specific plugin overriding the default smileys, which were supposed to be overridden by the custom set I'd uploaded, but after some grueling frustration and messing around it's all sorted!

Well, almost. The emoticon row is supposed to appear above the comment box. Like this.

You'd think it'd be a simple thing to fix, but the default WP comment form is built into a single tag, and to customize it you have to break it apart completely, which might break a few other plugins I use. Maybe later.

As for the emoticon codes: they're all actual codes, so regular text-based emoticons won't be affected. Old comments posted after the older comments are left unaltered.

Also: fixed kickstarter video embeds that for some mysterious reason had stopped working. The video link is now embedded directly, instead of the iframe. I hope they don't block access to that later on! I fixed up the last remaining old movie review shortcodes too, and I'm going through comments right now. For some stupid reason I felt compelled to skim through them all. Just a few hundred left, now...

Apart from site work there's been normal work, and after that day of resting up after my nephew's badminton tournament last weekend, I took a trip to the History Museum in Stockholm, and spent some time ogling at heaps of old gold and playing a floor-based 'Nine Men's Morris' game with a buddy.

It's been a good week! Feels like summer is on the way too. The weather wasn't great at first, but it's getting so good I'm starting to wake up way too early in raging sunlight that warms the room to sauna-like levels. Time's drawing nigh to swap the blanket for something thinner, like: nothing. But the nights are still cold.

It's that kind of weather where you can't go out without a jacket in the morning, but in the afternoon you wish you were wearing shorts. No balance. Not that I'm complaining. It's warm and sweaty and tiresome, but all is awesome anyway. Yay.

On the blog I've posted some random stuff, other stuff, and 6 movie reviews, and that's all for now! Until later.

Fresssssh.

I've been to a badminton tournament this weekend, just like last year. My nephew played again, and didn't win again, but we had a good time... I think (he just didn't seem very happy about not winning).

Everything about the tournament trip was reminiscent of last year, from the weather to the ducks that crawled 'way by the tall quay. We got better pictures this year, even though he had a few fewer matches so there wasn't as much stalling between them. Maybe the ducks were tamer. My battery ran out but it was OK! I had a spare.

We ate a quick lunch in the car underneath a momentary squall and rainfall, and spent most of the rest of the weekend playing games and celebrating his visit (and 16th birthday) with cake and fish and many great a dish. Good times! As coincidence would have it, two of three of my most good buddies shared a birthday this Sunday as well!

Unlike last year we have no surprise guest who needs a bed while his bathroom gets fixed, but it's been a busy stretch of days nevertheless. Today (which was yesterday) is calmer, and I'm resting up after the perils of his stay. Getting up at 6 to get to that tournament on time had me red-eyed a couple of days. I usually fight to get up at 9.

What else? Not much worth a mention I think. I cut my hair after... almost half a year (a sure sign summer's coming), took a shopping trip on Wednesday, but barely bought a thing. (There were no decent things to buy.)

As for the auctions that plagued my psyche last week: they're over. I overcame the urge, and am happy to conclude that most of the things I bought were useful things. All the ones I mentioned last week arrived yesterday, and I'll be picking up the final package (300 table tennis balls) tomorrow. That's all! The laptop´s running well, and currently running through 238 upgrades after a forceful downgrade from Windows 10 to 7, but more on that in some other post.

Aaand that's about it. All else has been work and time spent (I hope) wisely. I posted just 3 reviews this week, and was plotting to post another 3 but now it's Tuesday night already so I'd better get this weekly thing out the way first. It's been a good albeit too quickly passed stretch of days! Now onto the next one.

I woke up to no Internet today. Argh! No Internet! Nooooo! I thought I had an auction I needed to bid on around 10:20 too, but apparently there was no such thing. What a relief. And the connection connected soon after.

I've had a sudden urge to bid on random items this weekend, and I've been looking at so many things I don't even know what I need anymore. An addiction to replace Youtube, maybe?

So far I've bought a silk shirt, a pair of shoes, a few N64 games, a bundle of Pokemon cards, a bundle of MAGIC cards, and a somewhat decent laptop with double batteries and upgraded RAM. Yeah! I'm on a roll!

All of said were purchased at a good price too, shipping costs included. Much cheaper than I could find said items new, and probably cheaper than they'd be at a regular second hand stores, but you usually don't find these types of things at second hand stores at all. I did find a small bundle of under-priced Pokemon cards once, but the only pair of shoes I've ever found (and bought) in my size was a robust pair of winter boots that give me blisters if I wear them too long.

They're very robust though. Good to have something you can walk in if all else fails and withers down with age and the future grows so dystopian auction sites are banned (reason maybe being they're too lucrative for the buyer?).

I don't think I've ever seen a laptop at a second hand shop either, though there's always a variety of monitors and a few overpriced stationary computers. And tons of cables. The diversity and quality is just on a whole other level online, and the pricing is much more flexible. As a seller you have the disadvantage of shipping costs, but as a buyer you can use those to your advantage while bidding on multiple items, or if you happen to live in the right place bypass them entirely (their being listed on the page makes it seem like the products are more expensive than they are, effectively getting rid of the competition). Spring is the best time to buy stuff too, since it's the time when people want to rid themselves of surplus, and the demand is much less than it is after summer or the end of the year. I don't think I've ever checked an online auction mid-summer. Maybe that's the best time of all.

Anyway, I hope I've justified my spontaneous shopping spree at least a bit with the bargain potential. I'm happy but nervous about the laptop - since computers are an uncertain area, happy about the shirt and shoes - that I need, and happy about the cards and games - that I probably don't need. The latter should be a good investment either way. The laptop probably won't have much future value, but if I can use it that's all that matters!

As for Pokemon cards: if I had the guts to buy gigantic bundles on thousands of cards a piece, I could probably make a small business splitting those into smaller batches and selling them individually, but even a real bargain price is a hefty price to pay for that big a batch. A bundle on 4,000 cards just passed me by, but it's OK. It would probably have been more work than profit, and it would probably have cost me more than everything else I've bought combined.

There are things I wish I'd bid more on, but it's a good thing I didn't get most of the items I bid on, especially fortunate with a few that I always regret bidding on as soon as I do. I mean, why am I bidding on PSX games I probably won't ever play? And would I ever wear purple shoes? I don't need another old Powermac either, even if it is blue and white and awesome. But the potential business for those large Pokemon card batches still seems intensely alluring...

There's some manga, a bag with a few hundred table tennis balls, a bundle of hard drives, a Wacom tablet, and a few PSX games I do want in my list of reminders, but when all this is done I'd better be done with my impulsive online auction urge. When you're considering bidding on things you have no use for, you know it's going too far. It's so easy.

Speaking of shopping: Dan Bull put out a collection of albums recently - his entire Generation Gaming series thus far, from 1 to 10, and his first three studio albums! First three and only three, thus far.

It's not 10,000 songs like he claims in his clickbait video, but it is a total of 13 albums containing 156 songs, and cover images in each. You can grab the full package for no more than $3 (the video says 1$, but that's not directly true either). I do appreciate the gesture! And thanks to this little gig I found Groupees, where many a similar deal seems to be going down. It's a whole world of possibilities there! I mean, just check out this Taxpayer Bundle, with games like Flatout 3 for no more than a mere dollar! It seems like a pretty cool place. Yes I did waste wisely contribute a few dollars.

That Dan Bull bundle was up at a total of 6,000 dollars when I bought it btw, but it's closing in on 10k fast! And 10 days remain. That's enough to pay the rent for an entire year. :O Impressive gains on a one-bundle campaign.

Otherwise? The week passed like lightning, and I'm running out of titles for these posts since each week feels like the previous. I did visit two museums (Sjöhistoriska and Idrottsmuseet) on Tuesday, which was pretty fun, and we've had a couple days that were as close to summer as you can possible get with spring, but of course I spent most of those most intense two in the office. (Not voluntarily.)

The weekend's been rainy though, and my jogging ambition's going so so, but I just started doing the Tapp Brothers morning routine at least. So far so good. I'm still not getting nearly enough exercise, but there's just so much to do by the computer! Both works and hobbies, and the daily writing, and movies, and games (I played through Oni again this weekend), and this one Flash project that should've been done months ago. I feel I need a real time-management overhaul soon.

In less notable events: I rolled by the Central Station last Friday, and noticed for the first time the bed of cigarettes that line the track. There were hundreds, thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of cigarettes just lying there. I guess there's never enough time to clean the tracks at the central station - this bustling meeting point to which all trains must stop and go.

Speaking of things you see on train rides: there's an abnormal amount of graffiti and tags beside the tracks too, and one gang in particular seem to be everywhere. BST, or BZT. I see their tags all the way from Karlberg to Årstaberg, and I think I spotted their mark in Jakobsberg too... or was that Spånga? They line the concrete walls and fences in an endless collage - especially in Karlberg.

They have some great graffiti, but I could do without the endless rows of scrawls and scribbles. It feels like they try to cover as much surface as possible, with little regard to artistic effort, or even suitable surface texture. Is that the goal? Is it to make an impression? Or a statement? Or is it pure territorial pissing? I'd like to know.

Aaand I think that's about it for this weeks thoughts and happenings. On the blog I've posted this this and this, and 6 movie reviews - among them all the rest of the old Star Trek movies. Finally got through the lot of them! And they weren't bad. Looks like I posted this too. Without further ado, here's last week to review, and that's all. See yall, in a few.

Another week passed by waaaay too fast, and I'm a couple days late to post about it.

I took an awesome walk this Sunday, sun scheming behind a slow drift of clouds. I've watched through the sixth season of Walking Dead (it was great), sold a book, and visited a coin museum early in the week (The 'Royal Coin Cabinet' - it was more fun than it sounds... if you think it doesn't sound fun, that is). I also got a new comment on a blog I'd forgotten I had, which you can find here. I haven't posted on it in ten years - and then only the opening one, but it's still there. WordPress is a pretty neat service.

The rest of days has been work, mostly, and all those other projects.

Here are 1 and 2 kickstarters I feel I must post a link to, though I haven't supported them myself yet, and on the blog I've posted this and this, and 6 movie reviews, and 4 anime reviews.

I don't usually mention anime posts since they're not shown in the main stream on the front page, but that's because the episode reviews I posted back in the day would flood this page. I don't post episode reviews any longer, so maybe I should change that back to how it used to be, and let anime fuse into the usual stream. All the anime shows I've been watching this season ended, except for the eternal One Piece and Naruto Shippuuden (they're really dragging out the latter). I feel like my interest for anime's awakening again though, so maybe I'll pick up a couple new ones soon, if time allows...

Regarding the bike thing: my hip finally feels OK! My wounds are healed! I've been walking whenever I have the chance, hoping to start jogging soon so I can get in shape for the 1 mile run I had planned to participate in this May. At this point I'm starting to doubt I'll get be trained before the day... but you never know till time is all away! And with that, this rushed post has touched most of the topics I think I ought to juxtapose.

Last week is here, and that's all! Till next time.