I aten't dead, and neither is my computer! ... Yet.

I do hope to get to fall over and sleep like the dead before too long, but first I must make a concept sketch for my gravestone.

Main point of this entry is this: The stop-motion short we've been working on for a couple of weeks is now on YouTube. Lights off, volume on, and lookee! Considering the short production time and quite-far-from-top-notch tech we had at hands, I am not displeased with the result. :>

(At least two of the other groups have also put their movies online. Here's The Cellar, and Lille Edward. Have I mentioned yet that we're having way too much fun for uni?)

Hm. LJ currently seems to be the only place I can log in to, most programs refuse to start and the Firefox is losing chunks of text at random. How jolly. Well, let's see if a reboot will fix it or make the computer spontaneously implode. If they never find my remains, I was probably just nommed by some particularly vicious computer virus. But hay, 's bound to happen sooner or later anyway, right?

Not the first time it's been up to this kind of antics, so it might turn out just fine once again. But. I thinnnnnk I might want to try to speed up those plans to somehow afford a nice laptop, and not only because it would be more convenient.

It's not that I have nothing to post about, it's just that I am too distracted to sit down and write for a coherent stretch of time. School still good. The largest concentrated outbreak in Sweden of the pig plague seems to be happening on a school rather close to campus. (160 out of 470 students sick last thing I read.) First snowfall (well, sleetfall) of the year happened this Sunday. We just finished making a stop-motion short that I hope to post or link to in due time. Now that you are slightly more up-to-date with the state of the Me, I shall meme instead of having to think of a real entry.

woodburner gave me five words. ( I speak about them under this cut. )

If you want some words to talk about, drop me a line and re-post in your own journal. If you want to share a garlic baguette with me, I have a few in my freezer. If you want to bite the head off a live mole, make sure to wash it thoroughly first, and also you're a bit weird. If you want to speak with the phone answering machine from Hell, play Zork Grand Inquisitor. (Really, do. It's fun!)

This song is one of the best things to shake me awake and put me into gear. I hope that it will suffice to get me through a few hours of homework this evening, even after the 12 hour school day. Later, y'alls.

I has spinach-tomato-cheese-garlic omelet. And garlic bread. And coffee, which does not have garlic in it. Maybe I should see to that.

I shall post the pictures from Sunset Park now, but I fear that they are sparse and do little justice to the very pleasant experience of being there. Still, for those interested...( It's mostly from the exhibition tent, plus some of people playing with fire. Fire! Heh heh heh. )

Mhm, my camera and/or my usage of it is kind of faily unless the lighting is very favourable, so that's it. But, thar be other, better ones in the homepage galleries. Along with pictures of assorted rockingness from the stage, of course. (Morlocks were pretty awesome. I wonder why word of their awesome has failed to reach me before this, really. Give Happy Day in Zombietown a listen, but beware of v. catchy earbug.)

This morning, while speaking with a classmate who have been feeling ill for a while, I thought that I detected a slight soreness in my general tonsillish area, but wrote it off as being a hypochondriac reaction to the topic of conversation. Hadn't noticed any signs of sickness before this, after all. But... it lingered. Lingers. Still nothing much more than a sore throat, but I don't think it's just my imagination anymore. Hm.

Well, of course you do catch colds every once in a while, and of course sometimes they'll lay you out for a few days while other times they'll leave after only a short but not debilitating period of discomfort. Still... well, I had only been planning to swing by the store very quickly, grab some bread and eggs and maybe one or two other things, but... well, once there, my shopping basket just spontaneously filled itself up to the brim. Mostly pretty long-lasting foods, and easy to prepare even if indisposed. Freezer foods, pasta with a few different sauces, soup, fruit and vitamins... Garlic, obviously. Not that I am actually planning to let the piggy plague catch me, and as for this wot I seem to have right now, it feels more like an early headcold than anything else, but, yanno... might as well not get caught flat-footed. Just in case. Best case scenario, I'll have an unusually well-stocked kitchen for a while and may be slightly garlic-scented more often than not, but that'd just be business as usual. :> (Found a nice clean garlic press at a 2nd hand store a few days ago -- ah, finally I can claim to live in a civilized home again!)

Anyway, this was just to be a quick copy-paste-from-DA type entry before going to sleep, since there are a couple of things I've not gotten around to posting on LJ yet, even if they've been done for quite a while. So let's just get on with that, shall we?

First, a CD cover for a collection of piratey/nautical/oceaney type songs I burned for Magnoss and the boat. It is indubiously the most impractical CD cover I have made yet (assembled, decoupaged and glued rather than 'shopped), but, er, it looks pretty nice?

( Exhibit A: I've been told we sail the sea for American gold )

And also, there's this shadowbox... ish... type thingy. It's small, but at the exhibition in Umeå, I think it was one of the things of mine that most made people stop and look (and, in some gratifying cases, get the reference and laugh). That one, and the alchemist's wossname and maybe the batik... well, I digress. Here it is.

( Exhibit B: My grand-uncle was nommed by cosmic horrors from beyond the stars, and all I got was this lousy shadowbox. )

Now I shall go sleep the sleep of the infected. Pretty dreams to y'alls!

On one hand, as one of my new classmates pointed out, it is difficult to grasp that we are actually doing university level schooling -- I mean, this can't be university; it's... well, it's fun! University isn't supposed to be fun, is it?

On the other hand, I'm already noticing that I'll have to take care to pace myself, not let work pile up, and prioritize which projects it is okay to let the OCD monster work to near-perfection, and which ones I'll just have to let go even if they don't quite live up to my own standards. I have been coming home from school feeling rather beat (and, at least one day, with a pretty severe backache... note to self: investigate slightly less ergonomically retarded work positions.)

Still, fun. I mean. How many types of education do you get to start off by building a model of a post-apocalyptic candy kiosk from junk and cardboard scraps? (I would post pictures, but I think the only ones I have are at a campus computer. I shall see about getting them back here tomorrow.) I feel slightly reassured by noticing that I am not the only one feeling somewhat intimidated. That, and the weariness and social overload aside (well hey, I went from long-time unemployment to this, so it's only to be expected that there'll be a period of adjustment)... I think I'll like it here.

There's a flatmate now, a third-year nurse student. Have only spoken to her rather briefly a couple of times (and apparently she spends many weekends at home in Lycksele), but she seems nice enough, so I have started unpacking more completely and making this room into something a bit more like home. The walls are still mostly stark white with various drill holes and assorted blemishes, but we'll see what can be done about that. (Stupid load-bearing cement walls.) At least the bed corner has been hidden with various bits of cloth. Ah, scrap textiles, what did I ever do without you?

The third room in the apartment shall apparently not be rented out due to it being too small, and according to the flatmate, we're pretty much free to do whatever we want with it; she has mostly been using it as a storage room for the last couple of years, but it could be used for housing temporary guests and stuff like that. (I guess that'd be more inviting if there were some blinds and something to sleep on in there, but it can't hurt to have the extra space, anyway. Also, if someone is dropping by Skellefteå and needs somewhere to crash, I'm sure something could be arranged!)

Hm. So, there has also been a week-and-a-half of orientation before the school started proper... which was occasionally fun and not as scary as one might have feared. If there were examples of the more unpleasantly -- hm, missing an English vocable here; studentikost -- behaviour, I must have missed it. Well, it was that once when I looked out of my window at 4 am (I was still awake, so while startled, I was less grumpy about it than I would have been otherwise), and saw several people wearing hats, shades & overalls, standing at attention and facing my house. Apparently, they were there to wake up one of my neighbours and make him improvise a skit about the Incredible Hulk. Pretty sure that guy was one of the ones who seemed to actually enjoy being subjected to such bizarrity, though, so whatever floats your submarine...

I mostly participated only as an observer, but I did attend one of the dinner parties, the slightly less fancy one with a hero theme. Slapped a scar on my cheek, rummaged around in my collection of military surplus, and emerged as... *fanfare* ( The Cargo Cultist! (Here poorly documented in various bathroom mirrors. Oh, shush, you.) )

Also, this Friday, we the first-year scenographers/propmakers (scenobites, as they appear to have dubbed us) were invited to a hat party by the second year people. ( Cut contains three stray pictures from said party + yet another couple daft bathroom mirror pictures. )


Also, last weekend I went to Umeå to participate in the art exhibition part of the Sunset Park festival, as well as to hang out with the very brilliant and charming organizers of the event. But right now, I feel like I should quit rambling already and cut this entry short, so maybe I'll make a separate entry about that. There would be no more bathroom mirror pictures. I promise.

First thing I did after waking up the day after the last entry was check my mail to make sure I didn't dream the admittance message, or hallucinate it or accidentally turn it down instead of accepting or something else incredibly daft. Hah, well... I get a bit paranoid sometimes, is all.

( WTF That Was All About Anyway: )

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( Tangent: In which the Great Adulteress has been with all the kings )

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Uh, well. I was just going to write something about the school I got into, and how I'm happy and nervous and happy about it. (And nervous.) Seems it got quite long and rambly and pseudo-philosophical and a little bit silly NOT THE LEAST BIT SILLY, y'alls, giant platypi are SRS BSNS. >:|

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In almost completely unrelated news, pirate_moo, being the awesome that she is ♥, sent me a package wot arrived yesterday. Containing a comb. A fine-toothed steel comb. Hah. Ahaha. Mwa-hahahahaha.

Ahem. Yes.

Oh hey. Looks like admissions for schools have been sent out.

¬_¬

*fret*

o_o

:S

... o_o

:D ?

O_o

o_O

:D

...

Oh gods oh gods oh gods.

Last few days have been quite lovely, actually. Warm, but windy, and the strait is just a few hundred metres away when the heat becomes too sticky. Staying away from computer quite a bit and leaving it turned off when I remember to. Ventilation up here could be a bit better, yes it could.

Mm, I may have mentioned in passing taking a short evening class to try out making stained glass. ( Here are the two little things I made there. )


I hunger. I shall go eat the whole world now. Brb.

Rushed post, mostly copypasted from DeviantArt, as I'm goin a-boating in a moment.



( MORTUI NON MORDANT )



( Yes, there be pictures of teh b0xx0rz too )

Also, there's a sculpted portrait that may or may not be connected to the artifacts above.

However, this is as much of the painted version that I am willing to show right now. I really should get around to touching him up one of these days... ( anyway, here be a couple of pictures of the bust before painting. )

Well, enough of this frippery. Off to sea, brb

( Magnus went and bought a boat )

Him and l'Alex also have an increasing number of cats living with them. ( The, uh, stepcats? No... Kitties-in-law? Felinephews? whatever; many pictures of; from Hell's heart I picspam at thee: )

( Well, other than that... )

Vårdagjämning! Not completely compact darkness quite all the time! Snow... well, still covering everything in its particular rage-inducing way. Still wish to migrate. Ah well. Nnyway, went to the first meeting of a short Tiffany glass evening class last Wednesday. May be fun and useful even if I can't afford doing anything with it off-class at this point (much like with everything else). Och våffeldag snart, innit?

Listening to v. large amounts of HUMANWINE lately. Damn, they're good. Unf unf. Listen to this song, Epoch, and tell me if it's not awesome. Or if it is. Or don't, but I'm curious about what makes people enjoy some musics and not others. So. If you feel so inclined. :D


Should draw up some easyish pattern 'ere next Wednesday. And do bunches and loads of other stuff. Yeesh. Not let myself get too bothered by how the intarwebs screams like an abattoir full of retarded children, to misquote some heroic psychopath. (Being overly harsh, of course. Much of it still quite interesting and entertaining. Is sad how it becomes this mass of high-pitched unintelligible gibbering simply because of the sheer mass of information.)

Speaking of abattoirs and heroic psychopaths etc, Watchmen was fscking awesome. But was it more awesome than this? Discuss.

Hurm.


The next time you leave out a bunch of mushrooms in your kitchen, momentarily turning away to grab a knife for chopping them up, this will jump out of your sink, stomp on all the mushrooms, hit its head against your ceiling, knocking a hole in it, and then be on its merry way through said hole, leaving behind not even one of the invaluable coins hidden in the secret compartment behind the ceiling boards. Not that you ever even knew they were there. You may not even have time to turn around to see it before it is gone.

Also, would you hire this man to keep your local nuclear power plant safe?



And suddenly, the ad takes on a certain tone of overexcited desperation.

( Four other pictures, which do absolutely nothing to add any semblance of coherence to this post )

Nah nah nah nah, nothing to see here. Here, have some cake. Looks delicious, yeah? Don't be shy, just grab a knife and dig in.

just way too sleepy a lot of the time. Winter is evil and must be destroyed. With flame throwers. Yes.

In related news, if I had 5000 kronor to spare... *cri* I mean, unless it goes up a lot in the last minute, that's pretty dirt cheap. Buggrit.

Hm, I was under the impression that Twitter deleted all entries after they'd gotten to a certain age... but now all of mine seem to be back, right from the beginning. So they were actually only hiding them all this time? Tch, sneaky.

Yeah, well. Need coffee now, otherwise I'll just go back to bed again. Seeing how it's still broken and beating up my spine quite a bit every time I sleep, that would just be silly.

(Fscking winter.)

I broke my bed right after coming back from the trip, btw. Two boards snapped in half, and there's a big pit in the middle of the bed. How the hell did I manage that?

Maybe it just wanted to match the computer.

( Revel and make merry, my little eggheads, while you have the chance )

Reset!

Reboot!

Rethink!

Re-purpose!

Re-evaluate!

Whatever you're celebrating, have a good one. You're not done, and you're not dead, and you're not powerless, and there's no such thing as the inevitable. Try to convince me otherwise.

I think I have a slight tan. Of course, with my natural colour scale, that is merely the difference between 'very pale' and 'oh my god, is that thing even alive?'.

Sal = ♥. It had sun and stuff. There used to be sun up here, several months ago, right? I vaguely remember... It was also very sandy. Many people were very enthusiastic about Henrik Larsson. I don't know, I think he was more worth being enthusiastic about in 1994, when he had hair.

I miss the place already. It was lovely, and one week is a very short time. 'Specially since my brain was a bit broken for the first two days. I guess my usual near-inability to sleep before traveling is partly responsible, but I'd also wager that the light must play a part. Going from this mid-winter darkness to all that light = instant and very powerful spring feelings. Being extremely tired and simultaneously all giddy and slightly speeded is interesting.

I suppose some people, like Stefan f'rinstance, are better at just going somewhere, partying for a week and then being kinda done with the place, but... I don't know, I take a few days to adjust to being there in the first place, and then get attached and want to stay. Was secretly (well, maybe not that secretly) hoping for some kind of mechanical problem, or maybe some weather issues, to keep the plane from taking us home for a few days. Ah, well...

'M a bit sick now [--persistent cough--] but that didn't start until I was home again, so I don't care much.

Traveling again... I suddenly remember how I used to really want to study or work abroad, and I never really stopped wanting that, did I? It just was pushed to the side by other things. Good things, but nothing to cancel out the wanderlust. But... well. There it is, once again.

Writing more about the trip later, after I've unloaded my camera and regained a bit more brainpower and things like that. Brother seems to have a birthday happening today, so I'm guessing I'll be hanging out with family for the rest of the day.

Coffee now kthx.

Oh, yeah, for whom it may concern...

Public Service Announcement

Probably going to change my main e-mail address, if things work out. Still going to forward mail from the old one and check it once in a while, but I've registered another one to take over. The old one is, well, many years old, based on an alias I've not used for years, easily misspelled, and not something I feel like I can give to potential employers or anyone else I want to take me seriously. (I don't want to write the address here what with spam-bots and other Things of Evil prowling around, but it's the name of a certain famous Russian machine gun, plus the number 665 (as in the Wannabeast, or maybe the Neighbour of the Beast). It seemed like a good idea at the time, okay?)

Planning to use the new one as my Messenger address too, for... well, whenever I get back to using the Messenger. I do plan to, eventually.

(Oh, and if anyone here doesn't have my address already, and feels like having it for IM chatter or whatever other reason, feel free to add me, but do keep in mind that I am periodically très bad at replying to things and logging in, and also my computer is still wrong in the head. Anyway, the address is my current LJ name at live dot se.)

This little game/something is interesting and vaguely terrifying. D: