I think I'll break down on my blogging pace a bit this year. At least for now. To nurture the New Year while it's still fresh and dandy, maybe. To watch the weather shift and the snow melt away. To hop along the ice patches and see where this road leads me.

The New Year's off to a bit of a slow start, but at least I'm all caught up on the Walking Dead now, and on my One Piece manga (from 48 to 66 since my last post, which btw means I kept an unintentional pace of exactly 16 books/week from start to finish... give or take an extra two at the end), finished last year's Project 2016, started on this year's Project 2017, and now I've caught up on the weeklies too.

I spent the last weekend (and then some) with my nephew - we toured museums and stayed up late nights playing games, and this weekend a group of relatives came over for one final Christmas feast before Christmas goes out the window, which is what we're been doing today, with exceptions for long walks; rejoicing in the rare and rejuvenating spring-like sunshine that lingers outside for a few hours. For the second day in a row. Maybe tomorrow it'll be back to the usual shades of gray.

Though the snow missed Christmas by a slim margin it came back around... a while. We had the most amazing winter weather right at the start of the new year, and enjoyed it fully. Apart from walks, surprise visits and temporary celebration: I'm back to work again, and falling behind on past projects and site stuff. Sorry S3C, no prime number post for 11/1/17! Some other prime time.

It's been a pretty good two first weeks though, and you can hear a bit of them here and here, in this year's first two Project 2017 recordings: one weekly - be it freestyle for other, until this year is over. I'll formulate something better for that later on. I'm actually not all the way through last year's project yet *shame*, but the New Year's supposed to be a fresh start right? So best stay fresh; move on with the new! And finish the remainder of last year's dues when time grows huge.

In other news I recently upgraded the RAM in two of my computers: the old and the home office one. I swapped out 4 x 256MB DDR sticks with 4 x 512MB in the old - maxing it out, and added 2 x 1GB DDR2 sticks to the new, bringing it up to 5GB total. Still not as much as I'd like, but it's all I could do with spare parts! I've ordered a batch of 4 x 2GB sticks, so when those arrive this setup will be maxed out as well. Capacity-wise, at least. Apparently both mobo and CPU set the bar for how high bus speed your computer RAM can have, though I'm not reaching for the top there yet. It seems bus speed's not the most important thing (and what about latency?), even if it does make a difference... RAM's a new world for me. Even if I did upgrade the old computer back in the day. Just a couple additional sticks though.

The gaming computer... I can't upgrade that one yet. No spare DDR3 lying around, and apparently large-capacity RAM is expensive! So I'd better wait till I need them. Maybe until I actually have time to play.

I'm back to my no-shopping obsession again too... which come to think of I haven't posted about on the blog yet, so you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. More on that later then.

The minutes are slowly counting down now, and the counter marks the end of the second week of this grand New Year... I'm not feeling as free and unshackled as I hoped I would; with a bit of a backlog of old projects trailing after, but with a little less reviewing movies, and a little more doing what needs to done I should be caught up in no time. The New Year's off to a slow start, yo... but it's picking up!

You can browse all weekly posts of last year here. And hey: looks like I'll keep the tradition going. If not with weekly, the maybe a double every once in two. :) Until next time: have a good few remaining minutes!

Ciao.

So we're standing on the doorstep of a new era, once again!

The shift sure passed fast - as did the week before it. I don't have my old calender beside me to remind me of what I did each day, but after last Christmas weekend... not that much has happened. I've been sitting in. I've been out a bit. I had one day of work in the middle of the week, and then it was back home, and back to work on all I've been working with here. My site, mostly. Lost projects. Old projects. I've managed a bunch, and though my short-lived session of free days started with great stress rather than joy and celebration (it's Christmas goddammit), I calmed down the closer we were to the bridge, slowly accepting that there's just so much you can accomplish in a single year, and I feel I made the most of it. Or at least: much of it.

Looking back, I'm impressed at how well I ended last year here at the CDB blog. I wrote a good (more importantly on-time) final poem, posted an inspiring message from George Orwell, the one-hundredth edition of my semi-frequent Music Video Mashups, and both yearly recap and weekly post in one (a few days after deadline - but just in time for the New Year), all on that final day! I wish I could, but I just can't top that this year. I even had a free GOG give-away back then, at the very end of the post. Wonder who claimed that one.

Instead of doing things as impressive as the above yesterday, I wasted the few hours I had doing important things with the site. Upgrades - and such, but I have nothing to show for it, just a sense of accomplishment I'm trying to treasure as the New Year sets in. Some things to take off my todo list, at least.

On the other hand: though last year's pre-New Year accomplishments seem nice and dandy, I was barely active at all on the days leading up to the grand finale, as I have been now. Low on time, but catching up, as I still am. I posted a quick Happy 2017! yesterday, along with rushed accompanying artwork, but as for my resolutions... I think I'll re-use last year's bit of wisdom: Don't tell anyone about your goals until you achieve them!

My resolutions post from last year was meant to be private until a New Year was nigh, and checked back upon it to see how I'd done, but I feel like I didn't accomplish them enough, and revealing some of them now would spoil certain surprises... so I think I'll leave them hidden for this year as well. Guess the advice above didn't work so well after all, as in: getting me to do more than I'd do otherwise. :) But this year, maybe I'll pay more attention to those goals. They're still pretty relevant. It's like I just skipped a year. I know I did lots of things. Lots of good things, just not the things I planned on doing. Where did all that time go? I didn't initially post any resolutions in 2015 either, just a motivation. One goal, if you so will. A vision to live by: Stay strong! Let go! Get better! I better.

Maybe a line's enough for the even years, and renewed resolve a must for the odd ones?

On the blog I've just posted 6 reviews - my last routine batch of this particular weekly amount, and I'm posting this post in time this time, on the week it's due, too. Would've been dishonorable to start the New Year with less. :)

Btw, here's the first post I posted last year, similar to the 2017 tribute above..

I'm feeling pretty hopeful about the new dawn of days to come, no matter how apocalyptic predications I hear of this coming year. Not sure how I'll do with the Weekly posts this year - if I will, but you can be sure I'll keep on posting! I feel like spontaneous writing might be a better creative fuel. Maybe it's time to break that routine. Let go, right? Of that one, and many other old weights.

Here's last week. I guess this might be the last weekly post in a while. The last for last year, the first for this one; with a thirst and wish for a Happy 2017! Full of visions. May the bliss come: quick! Sun sit, sun. Set. I'm forever in your debt, rich one.

CDB Updates:

• Yearly backups, checks, upgrades, etc.
• Optimized and secured databases (a bit).
• PHP 5.4 -> 7 + tweaks. Old .htaccess/php.ini includes removed.
• Deprecated WP tags and old feed links/includes removed/replaced.
• Core Object Cache removed (hasn't worked since 2009).
• Minor blog edits; fixes.

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:

• Corrected sidebar episode count for Anime. Naruto -5, OP -3, DC -5.
• Moved big files from /2 back to NG Dump, since I now have more space.
• Added SC profile and 2016 archive to sidebar.
• Tested Cloudflare integration. Others.
• Other blog edits; fixes.

Time is flying by waaay too fast lately.

I'm up at book 42 in the One Piece manga as of today - and was around book 36 at the time I should've posted this, which makes for a pretty even reading pace of 18 books/week since I started.

I don't plan to read all the way as the final book I have is 66 (the final segment of the One Piece manga published in Sweden - it didn't sell well enough), and I'd like to pause at a good point. Maybe right before the Strawhat reunion at the Sabaody Archipelago... or right after. Maybe. Maybe it won't be so easy to stop reading once I reach that point, though.

I've been spending both nights and train rides to and from work flipping pages lately, and it just keeps getting better and better, and better than I remember it. I'm surprised that it doesn't seem to matter how many times I go through this one particular manga - it still evokes the same inspiring sense of adventure and emotion, and I realize once again that Eiichiro Oda is a story-telling genius. Who else could build up an intrigue for so long - all without filler or repetition, and still have it conclude with such finality, rather than running out into the sand like most stories do when they go on for years without end?

It's like that with most of the entertainment I partake in. I keep dropping them if they go on too long. The boss fights in both Final Fantasy 4 and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow are lined-up before this. For some reason I keep picking up something else right before I'm done with the current project... but not when it comes to One Piece! Not yet. Not even with the anime, no matter how sub-par it's become.

So whatever does this one series have that other forms of entertainment don't? Probably something about continual attention requirement. You can't drop it for a second, whereas games easily turn into a grind either just before or after their final phases. That and a great story, and character, and continuity, and an obvious care for all of this by aforementioned author. I'll save the full analysis for some other post though, this is starting to take over my weekly summery.

Despite lack of time and a feverish reading of One Piece manga, it's been a pretty good week. Pretty good. Not bad...

Actually it's been hella stressful. I think I woke up 3/7 days with a headache. Too late nights, too sweet food and too much computer. We went to a traditional gather-together event called Lilla Julafton (Little Christmas Eve) this weekend and had a good time there, but otherwise it's been tiresome and non-mentionable.

I boxed a bit on Monday, but then barely exercised at all the rest of the week. I'm about to upload that project I promised the week before last. I've been falling behind with Project 2016, even though I've been skipping my 750 Word batches for a couple of weeks now, but I'm caught up with the hundreds. There's a few collabs I really want to finish before the New Year, and other projects, and so much I doubt I'll be able to finish... but what's the rush? You can only do so much in a day anyway. Better leave the rest till the next and just plow through it at a steady pace, one step at a rhyme (pun!).

The last three weeks I've been posting mine and Jabun's collabs over on my SoundCloud profile - one track each Monday, and I'll probably be adding a link in the sidebar soon to my profile. Though Newgrounds is my home eternally, it wouldn't hurt to gain a few followers on the bigger social soundsites as well. You'll always hear my stuff either here or at NG first, but I plan on uploading most of it to SC as well come next year... and maybe some of my older stuff as well.

On the blog I've posted this, 6 reviews, 2 new on old titles, and here's last week. Been eating a ton of mandarins too. It's nuts. And nuts. The week passed fast, and that's that, and sorry for the late posting about it. Work's coming to a pause tomorrow so hopefully there'll be time to catch up. Onto the recently also very non-mentionable and routine

CDB Updates:

• Minor blog edits; fixes.

More like update. Are you up? Great! Time is up: hey.

Had to wordplay but had no reason! There's the err.

Esperia though, it's a small cozy Greek restaurant somewhere in Södermalm. I had a pretty nice dinner there (like a Christmas banquet, but without the banquet, or Christmas) with my main job this week. Three dishes. Kefalotiri (grilled aged sheep cheese) with oregano and lime. Grilled sea bass fillets, dill cream and marinated beetroot with fried potato slices, Tzatziki, and bread, with Italian iced tea with lemon and honey, fresh water and red Amethystos wine. And to conclude: lemon and mint sorbet with a dash of Prosecco. Delicious.

I rarely get to indulge in fancy foods, but when someone else finances the event it's alright! A real treat. Should definitely eat out a bit more often even when I'm paying though - and not just fast food if I do. This dinner didn't just taste great, and offer some entertaining conversation with good people - it left me feeling fresh and healthy, invigorated by ingredients of (I imagine) much greater quality than those you'll find at the local supermarket.

I'm even starting to speak differently, in embellished tone, feeling like I'm ambidextrously pending between a normal, working class style of life and a finer one, like that of... politicians, maybe.

Imagine expensive restaurant food being a norm. Being boring. Away from the all-but-cozy claustrophobic cage of a one-room business apartment you'd otherwise spend a meal in, as you live lavishly under the city neon, interacting with foreign agents of international creeds, both a benefactor to and a baron throned above the lower-class hired hands feeding the consumerist pyramid scheme we climb, raining debris as we claw our way upward - making a mark, watching as all crumbles below us.

Well... nah, that doesn't seem like the type of person I want to be. I imagine. Though I wouldn't mind eating food like this a bit more often... even if it is the rarity that makes it so appreciated.

We went bowling at Rock & Bowl, Mariatorget too, before this. The bowling... went alright. Should definitely do that more often too. And compete more. Play under pressure. I feel like I'm the kind of guy who plays worse when I play worse, and I expect to play worse when I play with people who I expect to be better. And if they play worse... I play worse. But I ranked second (out of six), so that was alright too.

Overall it's been a good week, with varied weather and this weekend: snow! :D After about a week of dark nights and slush winter's finally back again.

Cyberdevil's Back is finally on the site too, but those other projects... coming soon™. I have been working with the site, but lately work goes slow and days pass fast. Not enough D-Vitamin? Too much One Piece manga (I picked up the first book on a whim and I'm eighteen books in today)? Too little sleep and/or exercises? Maybe a combination of all.

If you need some motivation btw, try this.

Find one path. Take it. Last week. Other stuff. And that GOG sale went pretty well. Peace out.

CDB Updates:

• Added in 'and' on slugs for movies with '&' in titles.
• Minor blog edits; fixes.

Naruto is BACK! Though I did appreciate those backstories.

And did you know hot water seems to freeze faster than cold water? It's known as the Mpemba effect (after the guy who discovered it). Basically the molecules are more relaxed when the water is warm, release energy quicker, and as such are more susceptible to cooling.

I got that from the one Christmas Calender I'm following this year (SJ - for cheap train tickets, but apparently much else). Usually I'd have a few daily check-ups, but December came quicker than I expected this year, so that's the one. For now. For time-saving interests.

I've got a ton of more relevant stuff to talk about, but no time. Didn't get to posting that other project I promised by this weekend, but it should be up soon, as well as the Cyberdevil's Back track (onsite, that is - feel free to listen to it elsewhere for now).

So what's new? I've oiled my shoes. I've set up my new printer. I took a walk with a buddy one day. Winter's cold. I've worked, watched movies, played some more Castlevania, completed Mini Doom and started on a new anime: Triage X. NaNoWriMo is over and I made it! And made it through my 100 Words November first too. Wonder how often I've done that without noticing....

On the blog I've posted 12 reviews - they've been piling up, 1 additional on an old title, and a bunch of other stuff too. Here's last week.

I've made a few changes on the site as well, and thought I'd start mentioning any minor changes (stuff that doesn't merit it's own post) at the end of these weekly blogs, and tag them with UPD when I do, so they'll be easy to browse/take notice of, even when you normally wouldn't notice said changes. Starting today...

CDB Updates:

• Moved ca 500 posts still in the main Blog category to relevant subcategories.
• Removed Update category, moved most to Blog > Life, and tagged with UPD.
• Raised display limit on Movie List. 900 to 1000.
• Raised upload limit. 10 to 20MB.
• Minor edits; typo fixes.