zappo

Whoa, seasick. I have to wear glasses today on account of me going completely dry on Monday. Ack. Not just eyes but nose and throat too. Probably because indoor air is going desert-like when the heating systems kick in.

On Monday I visited G-g and Fim and their new kitten Tesla who was absolutely adorable. I got to be a chew toy for a while. But then I came home and learned that little Bianca is missing, and she still is, probably eaten by a fox, poor little thing. Such an exceptionally friendly little cat, also adorable, but far too naive and non-afraid to survive long in the wild. She didn't know to fear things like cars, foxes or lawn-mowers. She is sorely missed, not least by Arvid, the other cat.

:(

Now time for course in rock mechanics, followed by a five-hour-plus drive to Borlänge, and then two days of looking at railroads. I'm going towards Malung on a diesel track (non-electrified). Then home and then Dr Who home con, what I call a Dr Whom con on Saturday. Whee!

Which reminds me, I should probably get down to watching the last episodes of the season some time...

Wheee, that was brilliant! "Zagreus" with a disco beat -- no wait, that's my neighbour playing her so-called music at max volume. Anyway, wheee!

Whoa, a few minutes between assignments... It's been pretty hectic - in a good way - this week, with the workdays filled with, well work. Then I get home and don't feel like turning on the computer, just watching "Doctor Who - The E-space Trilogy" and "Flammen & Citronen". Or reading a book!

This week has been a bit of a holiday in that way. Nothing that must be done, other than emailing thanks here and there, and I've finally got round to doing that now. What a chore eh, emailing! Soon I'll go back to Orust for another weekend at the hospital where my mother has been for a couple of weeks now, or is it three weeks? Time flies. Back to reality.

Next week our company is going to Barcelona, on a so-called study trip. We'll visit a tunnel construction site, and some other rocks, amid touristing. Hope we'll avoid getting mugged, that's all everyone says about Barcelona: it's beautiful and cheap, but oh the crime. What I always say is "Baaah-ce-lo-naaah!!!" trying to imitate David Tennant. Wouldn't you?

Partying with the Danes -- it's tougher than you'd think! I blame the tent and how cold it got at night, before it got too hot when we sun rose again at 0500. When I say "rose" I mean got above the trees and onto my tent. Also, that wood-pigeon must DIE!

Eight Danish tolkienists and me, for almost three days, having fun and games in the lovely weather, and the food, ooh wow. Then I negotiated the local train system, with a little help from my friends, and made it back home last night, so tired I just managed to watch the season finale of "Doctor Who".

Wow. The Big Bang.

Finally some real sleep, in my own bed without my legs cramping up from being tucked at awkward angles and being cold. It was a good tent, mind you, just not the right time for me to go camping out, at all. So this morning I overslept, dreaming about Roman Catholic hysterics. That's a new one for me.

There is a new recording of bus and tram stops on the buses and trams. It used to be some deep-voiced Stockholm guy who read out the names (apparently he was a member of the original tolkien society here in town), but now the recordings have been changed, maybe because the first guy died.

The new voice is difficult to tell if it's male or female, the first thing that makes it a bit odd. The second thing that makes it a bit odd I just realised: it has the exact same intonation as the first Daleks in "Power of the Daleks"! You know, the ones saying "I am your servant?" -- or more lately, Bracewell's Ironsides in "Victory of the Daleks" saying "I am your soldier?". Haha!

Makes me giggle silently every time.

Today I went to an arts exhibit opening at Röhsska. It's graduation material from design schools, and not a very sparkling lot this year. The best piece was a huge Smilodon skull replica made of some sort of metal, with artillery shells or something in it. And some other guy who worked with spheres, made me think of egghunter, looked just like her kind of things. The rest, meh.

But on the way I bought "The Clone Wars". Last week I zapped past an episode being shown on Cartoon Network, and got hooked. It was really good! -- as long as I kept the sound right down. If I turned up the Swedish dub, it immediately got really bad. Swedish-dubbed cartoons eh? Gotta hate'em.

Now I'm trying to draw a cartoon myself, for the program booklet of the upcoming SF convention. Got any iconic literary spaceships or planets or something that I can spoof? I already have Martian tripods, a sandworm, the Enterprise, a TIE-fighter, Daleks (of course), the XFLR6 from Tintin, Alfred Bester's "Tiger Tiger" and the inside of a Dyson sphere.

More insanity at work, this time with loads of CAD. Makes me go all loopy, flooby even, at the end of the day. On Wednesday, fr'instance, when we had our last-of-the-year Quenya course, I was so tired I had to flee home and watch "The Silurians", with commentaries. Heh, the old guard keep complaining about how the new shows are all too fast-paced, the wall-to-wall music, and the Doctor kissing all his companions. As they said, if you have young, pretty Doctor, and gorgeous assistands, the TARDIS will steam up.

Last night I watched three hours of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos". I haven't seen it since it was broadcast here in 1981 or whenever it was, but I've still got the book and the soundtrack from back then. It was still pretty awesome!

Also yesterday, I had a visit here from L, who supplied us with a studio when we did the extra stuff for the fanfilm (the fanfilm itself was never made). She's making some kind of rock film, about mountains and myths, and wanted to know about geologists. What do we do, and what does it look like? Not easy to show in an hour, but it was quite nice all the same.

Gosh, amazon claims they have shipped all those movies I ordered -- already. That means I might get them next Monday or summat. Oooooooh! *dies with anticipation*

***

Today I have assembled things to pack, and written a speech. Well, most of the speech is here already *), but I've _written_ it, in longhand, on a really long scroll. Hopefully it will look all sorts of impressive and pompous tomorrow when I unfurl it. That's at least the effect I'll be striving for when reading it aloud. (Yes, it's another tolkienist party, in Stockholm this time.)

Speaking (haha) of which, in the "Victory of the Daleks" Confidential episode Ian McNeice talks about how he did his Churchill. This was almost exactly the same method I used for giving Churchill/Middle-earth speeches. Haha! Great minds etc.

***

If you haven't already seen it, here's something funny. I came across the book at the Book Fair here last September, quite by accident. Funny clips. And the book is hilarious. Instantly familiar to anyone with cats.

Meow.




*) only now that I wrote it down did I realise the beginning is a paraphrase of the "Star Wars" opening crawl

What a lovely day! Instead of spending the weekend indoors, watching TV or reading "Sherlock Holmes" or just doing nothing, like I usually do, I did like a big part of Gbg and went to the Botanical Garden.

Aaah, pretty spring flowers, tiny tender new leaves on the trees, and birdsong. I spent ten minutes on a log just listening to a blackbird doing impossible warbles and imitating, among other things, a Nokia ringtone. Then for some ice cream and ambling back downtown before going home to... watch TV, read "Sherlock Holmes" and do nothing much.

Which includes wondering what last night's "Doctor Who" was about, really. A bit of a puzzler! Also been rewatching some "due South", fr'instance the episode "Eclipse". You know, the one where Ray lurks in a crypt, the one with a statue, of an angel, a weeping angel... Yeah you get it, slight Who OD. Which isn't helped by Matt Smith also being in "Party Animals" on Fridays. How adorable he is!

*glimpse at TV* wtf?! The White House interior designer, it says in Kobra, with some hideous bird sculputer with Kermit the Frog on top. And she lifts a wing on the bird, saying "And the stomach is full of booze" -- it's a liquor cabinet! Oy, if the White House contains such things, it's no wonder American politics goes insane.

A new Matt Smith TV-series is announced in Sweden, as I'm going off to England to watch that _other_ Matt Smith TV-series that starts on Saturdagy. Wheee! Travel nerves! also not looking forward to leaving home at 0400hr, or as I call it, too-dark-o'clock. Or bleurgh o'clock. Doesn't-exist o'clock.

Hopefully we still have hotel reservations, otherwise the day will start with hunting for hotel rooms. But I have faith!  Unwelcome suprises belongs to today only, so there. Has anyone spotted any good jokes? I've been out most of the day and haven't seen any. Unless you count Lilla Edet centrum at 1030hr as a joke (which I did).

Happy Easter everyone!

- collects new lenses. None of the 'notify' tags on the order form had been ticked, so I could have collected them on 18 dec...

- orders silk long underwear. therru swears by them and I need more of them so why not give it a try?

- ponders going to the movies, or perhaps a dog show.

- fears having OD'd on Dr Who this holiday -- if that's at all possible!