Any landing that you can walk away from is a good one

I don't like flying. I rarely sleep, even if the flight leaves late, and there's all that stuff that everybody complains about. Leg room, dry air, the noise, etc. However, I also don't like landing. At all. Seeing as how most accidents involving airplanes take place on take-off and landing, this may not seem all that strange, but it is to me. I'm mostly a rational person, and statistics like that really appeal to me and calm on a logical level. Here something else is at work.

This feeling of fear is often augmented by the fact that a lot of the time landings aren't exactly feather soft. With two notable exceptions.

When Mah Girl and I were in the States in 2008, we had two flights to get from Vegas to NOLA, and two more to get from NOLA to New York. On one of these flights, I didn't even notice we had touched down. Not a single jolt, and probasbly no noise from squealing tires either. It was like we landed on a big cushion. And also, last night. The landing in Kuala Lumpur was smooth and uneventful. Or maybe I was just sleeping...

More on KL later. I'm still trying to wake up and come to grips with reality.

The underground caverns, the booby traps, the skeletons, the monster, the lost treasure

New Zealand is one of the premier places for adventure. Bungee jumping, sky diving, rock climbing, hiking, all are things associated with the Land of the Kiwi. Kiwi as in the bird, not the fruit, though this suggests otherwise.

Food prep, New Zealand style

I'm not much of an adventure person or even an outdoors person (shocking, I know), but I have been looking forward to the Waitomo black water rafting experience since my brother told me about it. You get in a wetsuit and helmet (not a small feat for me, either of those), sit down in an inflatable tube and then spend about an hour going through Ruakuri cave, both on foot and gliding across the water. It was an incredible experience.

Like I said, I'm not much of an adventure person. The Beard prefers quiet nights at home to jumping out of airplanes or skiing down slopes or mountain biking. I see why other people might find it interesting, but I'm not an adrenaline junkie and besides, you can get some exercise from doing those things. The horror.

So even though I was looking forward to it, I was a bit nervous. Turned out I had nothing to worry about, though the trek through the caves involved a bit more adventure than we had thought. At a few points we got to stand on cliff edges, backs facing out from the cliffs, tube around our asses, and then jumping off to land in the water two meters or so down. Exhilirating, but doable. The only scary bit was when we had to go through a really low passage.

Promo pic, but it gives you an idea. Nothing for claustrophobics

The best part was slowly guiding through the caves, headlights off, looking up at glow worms on the ceiling, which made it seem like we were floating underneath a starlit sky. Very solemn and mysterious. So much in fact that I couldn't stop myself from whistling the X-Files theme. Geeky, I know, but it had to be done.

In all, a magnificent experience, and if you go down here and don't have a real problem with darkness or confined spaces, you should definitely do it.

This is before the descent. Note the horror behind the smiles

Today, we fly down to Wellington for three days of sightseeing, rugby (All Blacks! Haka!) and visiting Weta. Not sure if the BnB where we're staying will have wireless, so I might not post anything here for a few days.

This moment was the apotheosis of the postmodern era — the era of images and perceptions

I forgot to write something about 9-11, which wasn't all that strange since I was travelling on the date in question.

9-11 to me is the Kennedy assassination of our generation. Everyone in my parents' generation tend to remember where they were when they heard Kennedy had been shot, and most people I know can tell you how and where they found out that the planes had hit WTC.

I was at work. At the place I worked then there was always a TV on, up in one corner of the room. Often muted, sometimes with the sound on. No one had really explained what it was doing there, and I'm not sure anyone knew. I heard someone say that a plane had crashed into WTC, so I got up from my desk and walked over to see if I could get details. At the time I thought it was a one-engine Cessna or something, some rookie or suicidal pilot.

As I walked over I looked up at the TV, and watched live on CNN as the second plane hit the South Tower. That image of the plane hitting the tower, the ball of fire, debris spraying out in all directions, has etched itself into my mind.

I've read a lot of the conspiracy theories around 9-11. I've also read stuff that while not spelling out suspected government involvement in 9-11 at least hints at it. My standpoint is that I just don't know. I find it hard to believe that any government could murder so many of its citizens to justify, for example, the privatization of the military.

In September of 2000, The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a non-profit organisation released the report Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, explaining their view on how America should develop their armed forces. In it, they write that "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor". Jeremy Scahill writes about this in "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army" (scary but necessary reading), and points out, like many others have, that the presence of private security companies within US armed forces increased significantly after 9-11.

I don't believe the conspiracy theorists that tells us that the events of 9-11 was engineered specifically for this purpose. That Erik Prince and other madmen were somehow involved. But you have to realise that a lot of these organisations, be they PNAC or Xe Services LLC (formerly known as Blackwater) or others, have some troubling ties to the Bush administration (check out this list), extremist Christian groups and other people whose opinions in no way, shape or form should be able to influence how the world works. Undoubtedly they have had a say in how more and more of America's defense budget is funneled into private military companies.

It would be nice if, as we've become quote more civilised unquote, the world has become a better place over the years, if we're talking about war and hidden agendas. After all, the Internet allows us unprecedented access to information and news, from a variety of sources, so we should be able to see through any subterfuge on that scale. The control of the news flow is no longer in the hands of the few.

However, it seems to have become worse and worse. I'm not really interested in politics, which to me is sort of a weakness, since it would give me at least the semblance of a grasp on How Things Work, but I know enough to know that a lot people are in it for themselves, regardless of whether its on a private or national scale. I have yet to meet or see a single politican that I trust. And this is in Sweden, where we don't bother with concepts like war or terrorism. I can't imagine what it must be like to live in the US and have opinions outside of the party line, so to speak.

Fatigue is the best pillow

New things on the agenda. I knew we were going down to Wellington on Thursday, where we're going to a museum and renting a car to drive around the coast a bit. What I didn't know was that my brother had made more plans.

We're going to see All Blacks vs Wallabies. That is, New Zealand vs Australia, rugby. Black-clad tattooed men doing a wardance. Thousands of screaming fans. I'm not much of a sports person, other than NFL games, but large spectacles are always fun. Plus, you know, black-clad men doing a wardance.

We're also going to Weta Cave, special effects company Weta's store/mini museum. Very cool. Hopefully Muppets and Hellboy stuff in the gift shop. I might have to give my wallet to my brother to avoid spending too much.

Yesterday was all about staying awake. Tick tock, tick tock. I was moving between exhaustion and some kind of focused state that unfortunately didn't extend to motor skills. I managed to stay awake until nine o'clock, and then fell asleep about ten seconds after I put my head down. Woke up at 0120, looked at the time on my phone, and remember thinking that I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. Then woke up at 0445, phone still in hand.

Managed to get another two hours of sleep, and now I'm on the couch, laptop and book and tv remote within easy reach. Trying to level out, just relax and enjoy the fact that I have three weeks vacation left. Tomorrow I will explose Auckland's city centre, and Wednesday we're cave tubing. Beardonaut in a wetsuit. Horror of horrors.

If a man goes into business with only the idea of making money, the chances are he won’t

That evil and despicable mega-corp Disney has gone and done it again. The day before yesterday it was announced that Disney is buying Marvel. Let me repeat that. Disney, as in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, is buying Marvel.

Now, this may not mean a whole lot to most of you. In fact, most of you probably don't care. To me, though, and to othr comic book nerds around my age this is a pretty big deal.

Marvel comics were an integral part of my teens. X-Men, Spider-Man, The Hulk and, above all, Daredevil, were like friends to me. The Marvel universe is the first that I found escape in, and regardless of the ups and downs Marvel and it's titles have gone through over the years, I will always look back at all that stuff I read in the early to mid 90s with a smile on my face.

My favorites are X-Men circa 1991-1995, Frank Miller's Daredevil and some Punisher stuff. Oh, and Marshal Law, but that's not really Marvel Marvel.

So now Disney is swooping in, assuming control of a Marvel Comics once again on the top of their game. This is a company that filed for bankruptcy in 1996, after being the most visible comic book company for a long time. The recovery they've gone through since then is nothing short of remarkable. And much of this is due to the success of the movies based on Marvel characters. This began in 1998 with Blade, and continues to this day with blockbuster hits like Iron Man.

Let's take a moment to ponder all them Marvel films. Being a fan of many of the original comics, I have watched these movies with a mix of fascination and utter dread. There have been disasters and there have been surprising highlights.

The surprise was Iron Man. I was never a die-hard fan of the character itself, but as soon as that first trailer surfaced and I saw Robert Downey Jr's crooked smile, I knew it would be a wild ride. And it was, and still is. I await Iron Man 2 with a not so crooked smile.

The disaster? Daredevil. A train wreck, of epic proportions. I know the word may seem inappropriate here, but it was a downright rape of one of my favorite characters. Horrendous.

Daredevil, which is sort of Marvel's equivalent to Batman, is one of the reasons why I view the acquisition of Marvel by Disney with a great deal of horror. Sure, they had the good sense not to mess with Pixar's recipe for success after they bought them, but that's not really the same thing, to me. Marvel has a darker side that I imagine may be hard to swallow for some Disney execs. This dark side is rarely more evident than in Daredevil. And there has been talk of a reboot of the Daredevil franchise, a la Batman Begins. Darker, edgier, without Ben Affleck and Colin Farrell. Oh the possibilities.

Now though, Scrooge McDuck has opened his vault of infinite dollar bills and let them rain over Marvel's shareholders. An astonishing 4 billion dollars is the price for my childhood nostalgia. Time will tell if anything good comes out of it. I expect disappointment. My gut feeling is that Disney is after the possibilities to sell toys, video games and all that jazz, and will focus on churning out blockbuster movies based on Marvel characters. Not in itself a bad thing, but like I said, I doubt they will embrace the darker side of Marvel.

If there are any comic book fans reading this (and yes, the question is to you too, Steelwheels, oh mighty Marvel geek), please share your Marvel memories and tell me your fave Marvel movie. If anyone says Daredevil, I will disown you.

A void of indifference

Possible spoiler below, if you haven't seen Heroes.

We watch a lot of TV, Mah Girl and I. Preferably in the DVD box form, and we have a bunch of them on our shelves. Today we finished Generation Kill, which we started yesterday. A miniseries of seven episodes about a unit of recon Marines during the second US invasion of Iraq, in 2003.

I like the miniseries format. I like knowing that the writer and producer and director have a set ending in mind while they're working, and that they know the path to that end from day one. I tire quickly of TV shows that go nowhere and seem to have no goal in sight (can you spell Lost?), though shows that just fade before a proper end comes along pisses me off even more. Carnivale is one example of that (though I haven't watched it yet, its on our shelf), Millennium another.

If I'd had my way, Heroes would have been a miniseries too, at least at this point when we've seen season one and two. If the show had ended at Kirby Plaza, with the explosion, I would have been a very happy camper. Few shows, especially American shows, have the guts to end in that way.

Back to Generation Kill. Excellent script, brilliant characters and good actors, including Alexander Skarsgård in top form. The show doesn't make a political statement about the US presence in Iraq, but instead highlights the futility of the actions of American soldiers as well as show the horrors of war. The indifference of most of the recon Marines in the face of death and suffering is horrendous to watch.

I myself actually see the point of war. I'm not saying I condone the invasion of Iraq, but there are times when armed conflict is unavoidable and indeed necessary. History are full of such examples. We might have all been speaking German today if someone hadn't decided to meet violence with violence.

Yes, there are crimes committed and innocents killed in war. That is horrible, and something none of us should accept. However, this should not make us blind to the fact that war is necessary. There are greater wrongs in this world that can only be corrected through the use of force. That is sad, but an undeniable fact.

Blame it on a brief bout of sentimentality

I'm not a sentimental guy. Not really. I do have some things that have been with my for a while, though, that I treasure. And today, when I realized one of them was missing I got sentimental.

Back in 1991 (I think) I spent three weeks in a language program on the Isle of Wight outside Great Britain. I didn't get a whole lot out of that, that has stayed with me, except two things: that we taught our host's parrot to curse in Swedish, and a bookmark.

That bookmark, a simple black leather thing with a Stonehenge logo (since I bought it at Stonehenge), has been with me since then. I haven't read a book in eighteen years where it hasn't been between the pages. It's been a part of my life longer than The Beard. And now it's gone. Gone gone without a trace. Strange that the loss of such a trivial thing can affect me like this.

Most likely it's because of all the memories associated with that bookmark. All those hours spent with a paperback in my hands, escaping to other worlds, on the train, at home, in the car, during lunch hour at work, outside, inside.

I looked for it in the places where I thought it might be, in some books I've read recently, on the table where I keep a pile of stuff, in the drawer where I keep even more stuff. Nowhere to be seen. To be continued.

You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry

I twisted my foot yesterday. At an Excel course I was taking. I won't hold it against you for thinking I went loco on Excel's ass. Maybe some table or formula wouldn't do my bidding?

Didn't seem like a big thing at the time, twisting it. It hurt like a mofo, but I elevated it and cooled it down and figured I would be able to get around under my own power without a problem. This morning it was a whole new ball game. As in I had a swelling the size of a tennis ball on the side of my foot.

So I went to the emergency room, reluctantly, since hospitals are Hell incarnate to me. Really, I become physically nauseous just walking into one.

Today I found out there are two emergency rooms at the hospital closest to our apartment. The first one is the regular ER, where traffic accident victims and stab victims and the dying go. I spent hours at one of those ERs a couple of years ago. Not a pleasant experience. The second one turned out to be drab and dull, but very uneventful. A crying child and a construction worker with broken fingers were the height of drama.

Finally they X-rayed my foot. Over and over and over. Twisted and turned my sore, swollen ankle. Well done, really.

The foot, dumbasses. Not the face. The foot.

In typical Swedish health care fashion I had several waiting periods, and also long walks down horribly brown and gray corridors, shuffling along as best I could, supported by a crutch. Hours passed from when I got there until I got the results of the X-rays. So I got hungry.

I'm not very pleasant to be around when I'm hungry. I get cranky and it shows. The only reason I didn't skewer someone with a random medical device is that no one was around. Maybe they were having lunch, the bastards.

They had to restrain me once my blood sugar dropped.
Things could have gotten nasty.

Nothing major, it turns out, just a sprained ankle. Supportive bandages and a crutch for a couple of weeks, at most. Annoying, but doable. And I got a lot of material for a story about hospitals out of it. Friends think I should claim a bear mauled my foot. No one's gonna buy that. I'll go with rhinoceros.

The street lamp's glow is the only sun I know

December. I can't believe it.

The weekend was a combination of splendid and horrendous.

Splendid:
- Hanging out at Eva and Fred's place, watching 12 Monkeys, playing Little Big Planet, drinking Mackmyra's Den första utgåvan.
- Hooking up with Matthias and his girlfriend (who has the lyrics for the TOOL song “Sober” tattooed on her arm) for food and music nerd speak.
- Playing CDs at Belsepub, meeting up with friends both old and new, and hanging out with Larsa and Alice In Jeans until the wee hours of the night.
- Shopping. Cargo pants, jacket, three sci-fi anthologies, Dave McKean's tarot deck and a four-inch alien warrior for Mah Girl.

Really. We weren't that inebriated. Really.

Horrendous:
- The five hour hellride that was supposed to take three hours. An X2000 train that can only do 110 kilometers per hour should be outlawed.
- Spending an hour and twenty minutes at the train station in Borås because I read the wrong time table. Without my Nintendo DS I might have gone crazy.

In all, a good weekend. Though it was good to come home too. Back to the girl, and yet more episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Happy happy joy joy.

It's too bad she won't live... but then again, who does?

We came to the conclusion today that Mah Girl is a replicant. A skin-job. A biorobot.

Why? Because she can only remember her childhood in snapshots, like actual photographies, and she can make kick-ass origami unicorns.

The glory that is Blade Runner.

OK. So I lied about the origami. But still. I might need to unpack my Voight-Kampff test.

I hardly think a few birds are going to bring about the end of the world

I woke with a persistent headache this morning, like someone had fixed a metal ring to the inner circumference of my skull and kept turning screws making it expand ever so slowly.

Thick fog shrouded the world outside, and I couldn't even see the school below our apartment building from our kitchen window.

Stevie Wayne: Well, my gauges must be wrong. I've got a wind blowing due east. Now what kind of a fog blows against the wind?
Dan O'Bannon: You got me.
Stevie Wayne: I'm not so sure I want you.

Walking outside felt like a dream. Sounds were muted, colors bleached of intensity. Whoever was inside my skull kept turning those screws, slowly, gleefully.

At the train station, hundreds if not thousands of jackdaws perched everywhere. On pylons, on power lines, along the outlines of the station house. Their eyes seemed to follow me. Some of them moved from pylon to pylon in sync with my steps. Music by Bernard Herrmann should have been playing in the background. I looked for masses of seagulls, but saw none. Exhaled.

No birds awaited me as I got off the train. Exhaled again.

Over the course of the day, I've managed to if not destroy, then at least distract the bastards playing with the screws. Ibuprofen, a big club sandwich and solitary confinement in a conference room so I can actually get some stuff done has helped.

Believe me when I say I will be on the lookout for flocks of birds on the way home...

There is great truth in Alphonse Karr's remark that modern men are ugly because they do not wear their beards

I’ve been known to terrify small children. Not on purpose, no no, I’m a really nice guy, but the mere sight of me has driven children to tears on occasion. My theories have included that my general attitude towards the miniature people shines through, or that it’s The Beard.

Today it was The Beard.

I was walking up towards the line at the grocery store when a man and his son came walking from the left, to get in line in front of me. No problem there, I was several meters away and crawling along at my usual pace. Which is to say most of the store could have moved in, in front of me. And it’s a big frackin’ store.

So the guy takes his place in line in front of me, while his son stops and just stares at me. You know the kind of look. People in horror movies faced with a massive man wearing a hockey mask and wielding a bloody machete get that look. Then the kid turns and runs.

The father notices and chases after him, looking back over his shoulder at me and says:
“It’s your beard.”

OK. So people in grocery stores faced with a massive man wearing a bloody…I mean impressive beard get that look. Obviously.

He comes back with the little Oompa-Loompa cradled in his arms and says:
“He’s afraid of priests.”

Let me stop for a moment here and inform y’all that we’re not talking about Bostonian priests. No black vestments and priest collar for me. Oh no. They were Muslims, so it was all about The Beard.

Yes. It is bigger than my head.

The father spent a few minutes trying to get his son to realize I wasn’t a priest. We shook hands (helped a little), I smiled (didn’t help) and I told the Loompa my name (maybe that helped).

In the end, the kid stood staring at me while his father paid for their groceries. Then they went on their way. I see a psychologist’s couch in that kid’s future. And a shaved chin.

Let me help you tie the rope around your neck

So I wrote this post about useless people and nurture vs. nature and inner darkness vs. the goodness of mankind, etc. Basically I’d had a bad day and needed to vent.

I’ve calmed down now (yeah, right), and figured I would continue that train of thought, especially since Joel went to such great lengths to comment.

I don’t believe that the inner core of humans is evil. Neither do I believe that it’s good. Beneath the veneer of civilization, we’re still animals, still the creatures that either hid in the shadows when the predators stalked by or planted our feet and fought, tooth and nail. That fight or flight reflex is still there, and it wakes up when we’re put in a situation that pushes us beyond the limits that we, and society, have set for ourselves.

Because of that, I remain convinced that every human being is capable of lethal violence. It doesn’t matter how much of a non-violent person you are, that primal reflex remains there, dormant.

That aside, I also believe some people are inherently evil. There are some atrocities that people commit that I simply cannot attribute to a messed-up childhood, or to the instinct for violence at our core. There are things that humans simply don’t do. And yes, I acknowledge that abuse or childhood trauma or whatever can make things worse, and probably shape someone who otherwise would have stopped at ripping the wings of insects into something far worse, and I even acknowledge that video games or movies or whatever intense experience there is out there, can act as something of a trigger, though not as a root cause. That, however, is a discussion for another day.

In Western society, we choose to meet such atrocities with prison time, and in some states in the US with the death penalty. I’m not an avid proponent of ending someone’s life, but in some cases, I actually see no other way out. This is not out of any biblical sense of an eye for an eye and all that nonsense. It’s simply because some people, that can no longer be called humans, simply don’t deserve to live.

Case in point: Andrei Chikatilo. This pathetic excuse of a man wanted the death penalty and got it. Can anyone argue that incarcerating him would have made more sense, or that therapy could ever have rehabilitated a man who murdered 52 people over 12 years? And ate some of them?

I claim to be an agnostic of some sort, but I sincerely hope that there’s some deep dark Hell where sadists like Chikatilo endure everlasting pain, or that nothing awaits them beyond death other than a cold lonely grave.

So yes. I’m in favor of killing people occasionally. Please argue with me.

I may not know much about art, but I know what I like

So yesterday, I managed to accomplish…nothing. Or rather, I chose to accomplish nothing. That’s the best kind of nothing there is.

On Friday night I had drinks with some people from work, some friends, and some people I’ve never met. A good night. Though the music almost got the best of me.

Yes, music can mess up an entire night out for me. Even when I’m under the influence and with good friends. In this case I almost went over the edge when one hit wonder (I was about to write Boy Wonder. Holy subconscious, Batman) Troll came on. Oh, the horror. Then again, probably serves me right for going to a club that plays mainly 80’s pop and 80’s hits. Let’s all agree that the 80’s was the worst musical decade, ever.

Still, I managed to pull through. It was a true test of endurance.

Music is a Big Deal to me. That’s why I prefer parties at home (not necessarily mine) over going out. Did someone say “old geezer”? Yeah, well, in that case I’ve been an old geezer forever. I embrace my old geezerness.

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to play CDs at clubs a few times. Did I like it? Let me think. Being allowed to play the music I want all night long AND having the opportunity to snub Mötley Crüe and Iron Maiden fans every time they come up and ask for a song? What’s not to like?