This World

It’s a quiet afternoon. Everything is still. The temperature is soothing, so soothing that even the birds are quiet. Outside my porch there’s a big field of green. Beyond it lies a sleeping forest, and above it a pale cyan sky peeking through ice cream clouds.

On days like this, it’s hard to ask yourself why we’re here. This world seems as if it was made for us. On the other hand, it seems like it was made for dolphins, hyenas and viruses as well.

Science tells us we’re here because primordial slime combined into living organisms, which after a lot of trouble evolved into the massively complex lifeforms we are today. But that’s not really an answer, or rather, that wasn’t the question.

The Sunny Seventies

Yesterday I went for a trip to the big city. Big compared to my little broadband-connected village of 800 people, anyway. The Z88 came with (see ‘Technostalgia Defined‘) and travel time disappeared as I wrote yesterday’s blog on it.

The purpose of the trip was to go to my favorite electronics store, but it turned into a full day of exploring what the city had to offer. First I got some goodies for my Z88 and my soldering bench. There were shelves and shelves full of useful electronics stuff and tools, so it was hard not to go on a spree. Clas Ohlson stores are called the ‘Kindergarten of Husbands’, and there’s a reason why.

Zeal? No.

I’m learning 3D, step by step. But I feel like I’m stumbling. When you get a new project to complete it all seems so exciting. This model is going to be my greatest yet, you think. But then doubt sets in. I have this vision of how it’s going too look, but then you hit a snag and you have to sacrifice some neat design aspect.

Suddenly you realize it’s not going to be as great as you dreamed, unless you allocate some time to learn new skills, which you don’t have time for, if you are to complete the project in time. Now the project dies in your eyes, and you have to really exert yourself to even start the 3D software and start working each day.

It didn’t use to be like this. I didn’t even have to have projects assigned to me – I’d just start working, discover new things, get excited, and work some more. What I did that instant was the most important thing in the world, and nothing existed outside my work. It was all very Zen, quite inadvertently.

Finding Real Blogs

Being new at this, I tried a few blog sites, but they all seemed to send me to a top 10 blogs list or, when I clicked on one of the blogs, many times you didn’t come to a blog at all, but some uncommentable newspage or separate site. Technorati was different, however. With two or three clicks I found real blogs, writing on the same topics I am. Recommended.

My Technorati Profile

When you give me that look it’s a joke…

“How does a toothless man eat a Graham cracker with cheese?”

“Caerphilly.”

The Noah’s Ark Fiction

I’m sitting on my lawn in the warm Swedish summer sun. A tepid breeze tickles the hairs on the back of my neck, and a butterfly with brown and orange markings takes a brief interest in me, then continues its meandering flight. Thoughts come to me in a light, steady trickle like the one from my armpit.

Are there really people who still believe every word in the Bible is true? Surely some stories, like that of Noah’s Ark, are obviously fiction? To make the stories true, you’d have to presuppose that the old world doesn’t work the way this world does.

Technostalgia Defined

Just got an expanded Z88, a neat little ultra-portable from 1988 by good old Sir Clive Sinclair that does database, spreadsheet and word processing work – running for up to 20 hours on 4 AA batteries! It’s about Letter size, 20mm thick and very lightweight.

Fired up my soldering facilities today, cleaned the bench and got all the bits organized. They really had been collecting dust for too long. After decoding a weirdish ASCII pinout I made the special serial cable to connect the Z88 to the PC. When I’d get the connection working, I could download BASIC programs and lots of other stuff from the internet and send it to the Z88.

Of Faith

Faith is an amplifier. If you have it, or work at it until you’ve deluded yourself that you have it, it will help you accomplish things you never thought you could. Be it terrorist deeds or an interesting and fun invention or a work of art.

I passed confirmation with flying colors, but in the back of my head something tells me I really did it because it was the norm and I wanted my confirmation gift: a bike. I soon lost my faith, had I any to begin with, since faith in the Christian god didn’t seem to affect my life in the least. In my late teens I became a searcher and devoured pretty much everything – Martinus’ Cosmology, the Bhagavad-Gita, Castaneda’s books of drug abuse and wizardry; joining Christian friends and going to Mass, inviting Jehova’s Witnesses and discussing the age of the Earth and much more over a coffee.

The most important trait

…is willpower. The lack of mine is more obvious than the X-ray emission of a black hole swallowing a galaxy. Worlds change because of it. A person’s stature has nothing to do with it. Just look at Steve Jobs. Or Adolf Hitler. Or John Lennon. (Two of which I envy.)

OK. I’m off doing concept art. Goddamn.

The first word

…is the toughest. In this blog you will find tales of adventure and romance. When you get to know me you will know that was sarcasm. But I’ll try my best to contribute something funny, or interesting, or both in the categories you see here.

The opinions expressed here are my own, especially if I’ve stolen them from someone interesting. Either way they are mine and are not connected to any of my affiliates.