Zombies pounding against the shopping mall's glass doors

Poking around the center of Kuala Lumpur a bit more today. Only a high of 33 degrees today, the moisture is actually lower today and there's the occasional waft of air down the streets. Just as you start to imagine that maybe, maybe its a breeze it dies down, but still, better than nothing.

Began my day with the sumptuous breakfast buffet at the hotel. Waffles and an abundance of fresh fruit. Hallelujah, brothers! Then out into the hustle and bustle for shopping. People everywhere. My first stop was Isetan, a Japanese department store where I scored some shirts. As in "not tshirts". Actual shirts. Seems Japan is more of an XL and even XXL country than Malaysia. Who knew?

Now online from a café where I'm having some fruit juice while hugging the air conditioner. Soon more shopping, at two or maybe even three different malls. Looks like they stay open a lot longer here, so there's plenty of time. Stamina is more the issue, I think.

I found a Tower Records that had racks and racks of TV show DVD boxes, at very affordable prices. Unsure if they will play at home though. Does anyone know?

If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?

The heat really only got to me a couple of days here and there in June and July. During one week we had to run the AC in the living room a few times, so we didn't melt. Here in the Land Of No Air Conditioning I had to buy a portable one, that we move from room to room whenever the heat gets to us.

Which it does now. The devil we call the sun is casting it's baleful gaze down upon us unsuspecting mortals yet again, and while others may smile at the thought of such a thing and then frolic about in parks and on beaches and anywhere really, I just want to close the blind, crank up the AC to ten and watch TV/play games/read/write/hug the girl.

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

Oh yeah. And listen to music. At eleven.

Now I'm going to go out on the balcony, which you can't even open the door to between two and eight without succumbing to spontaneous combustion, and give the sun the finger. And maybe find me a spider I can kill.

Cuz I'm praying for rain and I'm praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way
I wanna watch it all go down
Mom please flush it all away
I wanna watch it go right in and down
I wanna watch it go right in
Watch you flush it all away
Time to bring it down again
Don't just call me pessimist
Try and read between the lines
I can't imagine why you wouldn't Welcome any change, my friend
I wanna see it all come down
Suck it down
Flush it down

But then there's a moment like tonight, a profound and transcendent experience

Second weekend in a row at a festival. I had planned to work in between, but was instead out cold with the Stomach Virus From Hell that managed to take down five out of the seven people that shared our house at the Peace & Love festival. Surely this was a weapons test of some kind. A military jet passed over the lake one day, when we were sitting on the porch, enjoying or trying to avoid the summer sun (that last bit would apply to me and Mah Girl). It must have dosed us with something.

And of course Faith No More was awesome. Phenomenal. Other bands watching Mike Patton lead his troops should just cease to exist out of sheer embarressment that they can't measure up. Might be the best front man ever. They worked their way through all their albums, and managed to play almost every single song that was at the top of my wish list. Telepathy was somehow involved. Me and Mister Patton communicating on some unknown mental frequency.

On Wednesday I got to see the mighty Neurosis annihilate a club in Stockholm once again. Not quite as intense as the last time I saw them, except the final song, "Through Silver In Blood", which is one of my favorites and which felt like an element of a ritual performed by urban shamans in the depths of some concrete jungle. Awe-inspiring.

Now we're at the Arvika festival, or to be precise in the cabin we're renting, about 14 kilometers from Arvika. Just hanging out for now, watching Mah Girl drink a couple of cold ones and now dozing on the couch. So far, we've seen Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode, both of which were excellent, as well as some minor bands. Tonight, a few more, and then home tomorrow.

So three of my favorite bands, Faith No More, Neurosis and Nine Inch Nails, in six days. How the hell did that happen?

Looking at me, some might believe that the best part about this weekend isn't the music, but the fact that I'm the designated driver and get to drive my colleague Stefan's kick-ass car, an Audi S3 that feels like it has a jet engine in the back when you hit the gas. And they wouldn't be far wrong. Such a fun car to drive, and not only cause it has plenty of horsepower, but also because it handles really well. If I ever feel like spending 300 000 kronor on a car, I may just buy me one of those.

The smell of sunshine

I don’t get to drive much. We don’t have a car, since we live close to both bus and train and don’t have kids to transport. Basically it’s an unnecessary cost for us. Now we’ve rented a car for the week, and yesterday we spent six and a half hours driving the 230 kilometers from Flemingsberg to Karlskoga.

And no. I didn’t drive 35 kilometers per hour. We made a few stops and took a few detours. Going outside those tunnels.

We had planned to go to the zoo in Eskilstuna to watch some felines (they have tigers, cougars, snow leopards, etc) but that didn’t happen. Instead we took an unexpected right turn, following a sign to Taxinge Castle. Now, to me, a castle obviously isn’t the same thing as to the designers of Taxinge, but whatever. It was a nice detour even so. There was a Tim Burtonesque tree in the garden. And the café at the castle had a dessert table six meters long. Mmm….cake…

We kept to the back roads and off the highway for a while longer, stopping off at an antique store housed in a massive barn, full of furniture, old photos and less identifiable stuff. Eerie forties music emanated from cracked speakers. We bought a beautiful old wooden box, intended for three square bottles. Very nice.

At Arboga, we choose the smaller road again, and turned into the town itself when mah girl spotted what appeared to be an old water tower. Turned out it was St Nicolai’s church, with foundations and stone walls from the 13th century. Cool.

St Nicolai's church

For a while we were Lost in Arboga (Danger, Beard Robinson!), but got out safely. Phew! Made a few more stops on the way to snap pics.

Mah girl down by the water. Little fish, big fish...

Turns out I walked around with an airline luggage label on my ass from yesterday morning when we packed until six o'clock at night. Bravo.

Upon arrival at my parents’ place in Karlskoga, I realized the werewolf children are all grown up. Time flies. Next door a whole pride of kittens gallivanted about on the lawn. We played some cards, and cursed the heat (a recurring theme over the past few weeks).

Today it’s raining (laptop and DVD weather! Yay!) and a pie has been made.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Life is good. Except for the earwigs. Earwigs suck.

Write while the heat is in you

This morning on the train I sat next to a sleeping old man. He had a big white beard and his arms were wrapped protectively around a briefcase, cradled in his lap. He looked very serene and calm, the eye of the storm of stressed commuters.

Seeing people like that always gets my imagination going. Where was he going? What was in the briefcase? Who is he? Stuff for at least a short story, right there.

Passed the locker. Still counting away, and will most likely be opened and back to zero again sometime during the day. I won't pass it on my way home today, I think, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to check. If it's back to zero, then it's definitely Mondays.

I suffered from the heat this weekend. All our rooms have south-facing windows, and have direct sunlight from around noon until sunset. It's not an apartment. It's a furnace. We went outside to buy food and pick up a package on Saturday, and it was like being hit in the head with a sledgehammer. I hate the heat. I am so not a summer person.

The sky outside our place this weekend

And people look at me like I'm an alien when I explain this. It's biology. Nothing I can do about except pray for cloudy skies and winds. Though who to pray to I really can't say...