I think it's safe to assume it isn't a zombie

Things like this, to me, is the reason for the Internet's existence. I shall build an altar to the glory of Angry Alien Productions. Glory, glory, hallelujah!

And so it continues

Something I wrote

Some people expressed an interest in reading something I've written. Below is one of the few fictional pieces that I'm actually happy with. There are others, but this is the only one I will post, for now. I'm too tired to fix the formatting, unfortunately...

I MET A GIRL

I guess I have always had problems with women. That’s a typically male thing to say, I know, but it goes both ways. Any woman who claims to understand men is a liar. I’ve always been misunderstood, on some level. And I wouldn’t be surprised if women have problems with women as well, and men with men.

The whole man-woman thing has to be in a different league altogether, though. At least it is for me. Women are from Venus, men are from Mars, and all that crap. And no, I don’t live at home with my mother, and no, I don’t wear Star Trek uniforms all the time, and yes, I have a steady job, and no, it’s got nothing to do with computers. But all that is just a façade, attributes we think matter but that don’t, really. If you have a problem in your relationship and think you can solve it by changing jobs or something mundane like that, then the problem isn’t yours, but your partner’s.

Anyway. Now I’ve met this girl. She is a real looker, and I want to do things just right. Fix the problem, break the streak of no-hitters, to use a typically male term. That doesn’t even sound right. I hate sports. Not hunting though. That’s a man’s pastime. My uncle used to take me hunting when I was a kid. Taught me how to appreciate the skill required and the loneliness of it all. Just you and your prey. Still, that’s the whole damn point of hunting. Doing it alone.

So I have a date with her this weekend, and I don’t want to mess things up. I went shopping for it today. I’m a sucker for planning, and I basically had the activities for the weekend planned on Monday. Hell, I’ve been thinking about it almost two weeks. How could I not? She seems to be just the kind of girl I’ve been looking for, and I want to make the right impression. Get the proper “wow” effect.

So I went shopping. Two rolls of duct tape. Ten feet of half inch rope. A roll of plastic bags. A pack of latex gloves. A new hacksaw. She sure is a looker. I hope she’s a screamer too.

Writers are made, not born

A few years back, I took a creative writing class in Swedish, online. It was horrible. Awful. Pathetic. No criticism from the teacher, at all, just encouraging words for everybody, about everything. How the hell are you supposed to learn anything that way?

So it was with some doubt that I signed up for Creative Writing in English, at Gävle Högskola, the year after. I shouldn't have worried. It turned out to be an excellent writing community helmed by a passionate and knowledgeable teacher/mentor, with so much talent among the writers I experience a dizzying combination of inspiration, awe and inferiority complex every time I meet them.

The class is completely online, aside from one meeting per term, and has moved to a folkhögskola (kind of like a community college, for any non-Swedes out there) since I started. I have completed my four terms, but still hang around, as do many others.

If anyone is interested in participating in our community, let me know. The term is in full swing, but you can sign up for next year. There are four deadlines each term, with a selection of reading and writing, some obligatory, some voluntary.

In three weeks, it's time for this term's meeting, at Storvik outside Gävle. I really look forward to it, since it's always an inspiring (but exhausting) weekend, but I'm also dreading it, since it will be two years since my friend Henrik passed away on the Thursday when I'm supposed to go up there. Perhaps I'll use the feelings that day will no doubt spawn as some sort of inspiration too.

And all the sweet serenity of books

I'm reading Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs right now. I was supposed to be reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, but I couldn't read it. It was too powerful. The grainy image of a man falling from the Twin Towers on 9/11 was just too much, right now.

So it will have to wait until another time. Because it was a very interesting book, and the main character, Oskar, is fascinating. I don't recommend it to the faint of heart or...whatever it is I am right now. Stressed out? Depressed by the fall? Angry at the world in general? All of the above? Probably.

Klosterman has some interesting views on pop culture in the 90s. I'm not even halfway yet, but I think I like where Cocoa Puffs is going, though I have some issues with Klosterman's use of the word “fucking”. I'm not against it as such, but I see no need for throwing it into a text just for the fucking sake of it *grin*

What are you people reading right now, and what do you think about what you're reading?

My plan for the coming week is to write. Maybe not finish but at least start two separate texts, one to post as part of the second fall deadline for my creative writing class, and the second to bring to said class' meeting at Storvik outside Gävle in early November.

It's better to be barefoot than without books

I realized like/don't like sort of fizzled out and died. I will now attempt to resurrect it. Rise...rise...RISE!!! *thunder in the background. A hunched-back servant throws a switch*

beardonaut likes:
JPod, by Douglas Coupland. I finished this book a while back, and wanted to write something about it, but it just never happened. So here goes.


So far I've only read three of Coupland's novels, Microserfs, All Families are Psychotic and JPod, but I need to read more. Microserfs was good, Families was so-so, and JPod was great. Hilarious, well-written, exceptional characters, and with a nice meta-plot twist, since Coupland himself plays a minor part in the story.

My gut feeling is that you need to be at least partially a geek to appreciate JPod (and Microserfs) fully. There are geek references throughout, and most of the characters are geeks. However, since it is very well-written, anyone with an appreciation for witty contemporary literature should be able to appreciate it.

Now go read it.


beardonaut doesn't like:
Undisciplined dogs. Or rather, their owners. While walking home from the grocery store today, I met a woman with two dogs. I rarely pay attention to dogs, unless it's a pitbull straining at a leash held by a punk with too many heavy gold chains around his neck (wait, what am I saying? One heavy gold chain is too many...). So today I paid them no attention, and just walked on, headphones on, cut off from the world.

Until one of her dogs decided that whatever I had in my bag was of interest. Not like it bit me or anything, it just lunged at me and careened into me. The woman pulled it back from me, and started screaming at it.

Now, here was a person that obviosuly shouldn't own a dog at all. Why? Because she couldn't control it, and because she screamed at it.

I have no problem with dogs in general. My grandfather had dogs when I was younger, but they were well-behaved, well-trained dogs.

I could make all sorts of parallels here between dogs and children, but I won't. For now.

Who will be the strongest thumb?

I lost two thumb wars in a row this morning. What. The. Hell. I have a powerful thumb. Meaty. And I lost. Twice.

Did you know that there's a Thumb Wrestling Federation?