2010 - wtf

Ok, who here thinks that maybe, just maybe, we, as a people, by the year 2010 would be able to construct a car - or every car - such that if you by mistake leave an interior light on it would, after a couple of days - maybe when the battery is about to run out of juice - by itself, decide that - hmm, this is probably not right - I will turn that light off so that the owner of me will be able to start me next time he/she requires my assistance?

WTF computers

I wrote a rant the other day on a social media. Basically I hate computers (most specifically win8). It goes something like this (in swedish, use your favourite translator if you are not fluent):
Det jag försökte göra när jag blev förbannad var att ordna ett konto på datorn som T kan använda. Fint, man kan skapa ett barnkonot där man kan ange vilka program som kan användas. Jag blockar alla utan några spel, precis som jag vill, men Nä, det som händer är att 200 olika appar pockar på uppmärksamhet och säger 'be din förälder att godkänna att den här appen får köra', och det är appar och program som jag inte har en aning om vad de gör, olika Launchers etc etc. Det finns ingen info om vad de gör någonstans utan det är bara att godkänna eller fortsätta blocka, båda alternativen gör att samma app igen frågar 'be din förälder godkänna att du kör den här appen'. Fan. tillslut så godkänner jag de som är jobbigast och hoppas att det inte inkluderar 'shredd this file' alternativ... Ok, men hur lägger man nu till nya spel? Jag lägger till några på mitt konto och tänker att nu är det nog bara att godkänna dom till T's konto. Tror ni det? Onej, de nya spelen dyker inte upp i listan över program/appar som man kan godkänna eller blocka. Försöker göra detta lite snabbt efter lunchen (när T ska få spela lite medans jag lägger K för hans lunch-nap), båda barnen står och tjatar på mig och när jag misslyckas totalt över den här jävla skitgrejen så exploderar jag så att båda barnen börjar gråta... 
AAAAAAAAAAhhhhh, Fuck! Loathing, hate and fury.

Today I noticed that my virus protection was gone. Apparently the windows 8.1 upgrade removes any virus programs that are installed, without telling the user that it does just that. Thanx. 

Usb cables. WTF? Why the hell did they not design it so that it doesn't matter which way you put it in? fiddle fiddle fiddle, bend arout the entire desk to try and locate the hole, and ah, I must turn it around to get it in. AAAAAAAHrrrrgghhh fuuuuck.

Whilst installing windows it prompts me to stroke the screen from the outside and in to get this and that to happen. I DO NOT HAVE A FUCKING TOUCHSCREEN. You ought to know that! If you have to design a operating system that runs on your fucking pads and shit do that but could you please just do me a solid and design another one that works for us billions that still have a ordinary fucking computer. 

Apps: 
Just give me a fucking regular program version with a window that I can relocate, resize, close, minimize, have in the background, multi task with. Apps works fine on a Pad I am sure, where the screen is small and the cpu can not handle multi tasking, but I use a computor with lots of cpu, lost of ram and a big fucking screen. Let me use it.

Give me a fucking universal way to shut a program down. Give me a fucking Quit button. Or ok, let me use Alt-F4, but let that be the one and only way to do it then. And if I press Alt-F4, then the program should fucking shut up and shut down. No, I do not want Skype to keep running in the background, I want to shut the fuck off. 

gggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Dear Mr/Mrs Architect

Dear Mr/Mrs Architect,
Please tell me how you were thinking when you designed the balcony of our apartment. Did you never stop for a minute and think of the implications of a 5 cm gap between the floor and outer wall? Did you never, during the construction or testing, drop anything cylindrical or spherical and observe as it disappeared down to the balcony below or down to the street? Did you never consider what a child would do with such a gap and just about anything it gets its hands on?
I will find you and I will claim reimbursement for all the toys, flower sticks, clothe pins, pine cones and stones that is no longer in our possession due to your incompetents. (I also want to say to our down stairs neighbors: sorry for all the stuff we drop on you, but it really is not our fault.)

Black and White

So, I started thinking.

If taking photos was not so easy. If it would cost me precious time and money to develop each frame. If it was not just a matter of sticking the memory card into the computer and importing the shots into the photo database software. Would I then stop making the same misstake of taking photos that I know will be bad and actually start to think beforehand?
Should I go back to my old Minolta and shoot, and develop, Black and White again?

I thought about this for a time in my bed, and then I got up, turned on my computer and started to brows through my b&w collections from way back (before 2008). And man was it a lot of crap! Sure, I did find some that I could put up here without totally embarrassing myself, but the main bulk of the work was, hm, not that good.

Is it possible that a second go at it could be inspiring, fun, worthwhile and a big improvement over the crappy frames of poorly exposed artsy shots of stones at the shore with water stains from the amateurish development that this is just one example of:

Tech

I started to look for a good external hard drive to use as a photo backup drive. And all I could find was a jungle. I can't decide what brand, what model, what size, whats not, whats hot...
I started to look at some cameras instead, but that quickly turned into some serious drooling over some obscure lenses that I definitely do not need. I thought a while about buying some photo software, but noticed that I then have to upgrade my operating system. So, naturally I started looking into buying a new computer, a macbook with a retina display is perhaps not what the doctor ordered, but I can not even decide what type of computer I should go for.
Darn it. I need to get my hand on some serious doe, and then hire a personal shopper that can figure out what it is that I need and then buys the stuff for me. 

Originals

Someone has given a watch to the 'Excuse me, do you know what time it is?' man. One of our originals here where I live, who used to ask everyone what time it was.
And the man with flower tights, now walks around in regular black or pink tights.
And I have not seen the woman who screams at her children scream at here children in a while (but that might be cause I am to occupied screaming at my own children to notice).

I-lands problem

Did I ever tell you about our elevator?
No?
Well, here goes.
It is a regular elevator, you open a door, get in, press a button and the elevator takes you up or down. Just like an elevator is supposed to do.
But.
The buttons are labeled in a fashion that makes anyone not aware of it totally confused. The ground floor is nr 2. So if you want to go one floor up, i.e. to floor nr 1, you press 3. And so on. And if you get in to the elevator on one of the upper floors and have a desire to get out of the building you must press 2. That problem is usually avoided by marking the ground floor with, for example, a green button, but not in our elevator.
To add to the confusion, the list in the lobby is also numbered wrong. We, who live two stairs up, live on the third level according to the list. So, that is, If you walk, you go Two stairs up, to the Third level. But if you take the elevator you should press nr 4. Logical right?
The elevator also has a button that you can press to get the door to open if you are to lazy to actually push the door open, or if you are crippled, in wich case my sarcastic tone in the beginning of this sentence should be ignored. The door opening mechanism only works on some of the floors, But, if you press the button anywhere the motor on the bottom floor spins into action trying to open a door that is locked, cause the elevator ain´t there.
To top it all of, as the elevator arrives at a floor it slows down, stops and then after a little to long time (maybe 0.5 seconds) the door makes a sound indicating that it is now open. During my professional career as a mailman I have tried to fine tune my elevator door opening skills so that I open the door the exact moment as the door is unlocked, much in the same way that Usain Bolt explodes out of the starting blocks, But my own elevator fools me every time. You see, the door actually opens 0.2 seconds After the sound that my brain interprets as the start-gun. Hence I bump into the door with my shoulder and bounce back, leaving me standing there, with a warning for false start hanging over me...

So, that was the story of our elevator. Hope you enjoyed.

No bloging long time

It has been a lot the past month.
I stopped being a 'dad at home' and started working again.
The work has been hard, especially due to the cold weather and icy roads.
I have also worked a day at the daycare Tage attends, and that was no picnic, let me assure you.
I have trained a lot, or rather, I have been a trainer a lot.
My beard has grown big and needs more and more care.
There has been a lot of preparation towards last weekend,
during which I got married.
To sum it all up, I have been tired and have had no energy to compose any of these funny/interesting/informative/well thought through blog entries that you have come to love and crave. I am sorry and hope that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me, even if I do not promise that I will be better in the future.

What a day!!

Today was the first day that I left Tage alone at the daycare. It was only for half an hour, and it went all right. I mean, it wasn't fun to walk out the door and leave my kid crying in the arms of someone else, but he calmed down after a while they told me. But that was not what brought on the title of this post, it was something that happened during this 'free' time that I got.
 
I walked around without a real goal, just staying away and trying to not obsess too much over the fact that my kid was crying. I happened to walk by a grocery store and thought 'maybe I should just pop in and get me a chocolate bar, I deserve that don't I?' even though I am trying to loose those damned extra Christmas pounds that currently flapp around my waist. So I walked in to the store, but when I saw the fruit I actually changed my mind, I was going to have some bananas instead. But they did not have any ecological ones, and since bananas are one of the things that we only by if they are eco, I changed my mind back towards chocolate again ( I do admit that the logic here is not very sound, especially since sweets are not one of those things). Anyway: On my way back from this little detour in the healthy section towards my original goal It happened.

I walked by a cart with some wares that were marked down due to that they were going out of sale. 'Hmm, a bottle of fish sauce. That I do not need.' I thought distractedly at the same time that I, for the hundredth time the last fifteen minutes, checked that I had reception on my phone and that there were no missed calls from the daycare personnel. Just as I was about to walk on something in the back of my mind told me to look down once again, there was something in that cart, something very important.

And my mind has never been more right.

It was a product that I learned to love a couple of years ago. A product that inexplicably vanished from the stores maybe last autumn. A product that I wrote an unanswered mail to the manufacturer requiring about. A product that I have searched for all over the country. A product that I put a Wanted ad for, right here on this very blog. A product that I had lost all hopes of ever owning again. 

There they were, what might possibly be that last two jars of Chipotle paste in the country, in a sales cart, going for 10 SEK each. If they only knew what I gladly would have paid for them they would cry themselves to sleep for a week. You better believe that I bought candy to celebrate!

Re-littering

Where do you all stand on the subject of re-littering? I.e. if you see something on the street that you go 'Oooh - that seems interesting' over and then you pick that something up only to realize that it is just a piece of crap - is it then ok to throw it back down on the street or should you locate a trash can? It happens to me quite a lot and I often get stuck in this ethical dilemma (most oftenly I do re-litter but I never feel good about it).

Significant figures

I have a problem with the tv show Biggest looser. They calculate the weight loss for the contestants as a percentage based on measurements in whole pounds. So a person that has gone from 310 to 305 pounds has lost 5 pounds => 5/310=1.61%. And then they use this number to eliminate people. It is just plain wrong to get a number with three significant figures from a division that contains a number with only one significant figure. The true answer to the above example should hence be 2%. They really ought to buy a more precise scale and learn some maths.

Sheos

Attended a training camp this weekend. It was great fun, hard work and a cheep way to up-grade my shoes. I was one of the last people leaving and I could not find my own shoes anywhere. Instead there was a pair very similar to mine: same brand, almost the same model, half a size larger, and a lot less worn. I could see no other option than to adopt them and treat them like if they were my own.

Being the fool

This Friday when I was picking the last of the mushrooms in the forest closest to me I found a lens hood. I was a bit amazed that it was very similar to one of mine. I thought it over and concluded that yes - it was similar, but it was definitely not mine. So I hung it on a tree next to the path close to where I found it and felt good about it, maybe the owner would find it and feel good about not having to spend a ridiculous amount of money for a little piece of plastic that is not a crucial part of the lens but still something that you want to have so that you can use it to its full extent.

I thought nothing of it during the weekend (during which I saw two elks) but come Monday my mind started to nag at me. I took a look around and of course I could not locate the lens hood that looked very much like the one I found in the woods. Fuck I thought, I am so stupid. Of course it was mine, the one I found. Of course, I mean, who else would walk around at that particular spot, with a lens similar to mine?

I quickly got mine and Tages stuff together and rushed out of the apartment. During the quick trot I calculated (maybe estimated would be a better word for what I did) the odds of what would happen next; At first I thought that there would be a 50% chance that it would be where I left it, a 20% chance that it would be on the ground close-by but still intact, a 10% chance that it would be close-by but broken, and the rest that it would be gone forever.

The closer I came the chances of me finding it intact grew smaller and smaller. When I saw the tree and that it was not there I was not very surprised. I later found it some fifty meters away in the mud, broken into four pieces. I am quite amazed of how the mind works for some people. Why would you, if you find a thing in the woods, a thing that someone clearly has found already and put up in a place where the original owner would be able to find it, a thing that is clearly not crap, pick that thing up and destroy it? What do you gain from that? On the other hand, I can not really say that my own brain worked particularly well during this episode either.

In April

Some time in April or thereabout I borrowed two books at the local library on the art of using flashes whilst photographing. It was an active choice, I went to the library just for that cause. I have a good flash and I do not know really how to use it to get good results, instead I fool around and use the trial and error method (which works to some degree but - really, come on...). So I have actually meant to read, no, to really study these books.

Since then I have re-borrowed them three times, two of the times after the loan already had gone over the limit (so now I own the library some money), even if the library has sent me a mail a couple of days before saying that 'hey, its time to return/re-borrow the books'.

One of the books I have used as a lap-top stand when I have the computer in the bed. The other I actually opened and read several pages in, up to the section of the omni-bounce. It stated that - 'you really got to have an omni-box'. I do not have an omni-box. And yes I could buy one (and I will, once I am in a town that has a decent camera store), but since I do not have one I felt a little like a looser, I mean come on, I did not even realize when I bought the flash that I of course should have bought an omni-box too. Anyhow, after I had read the section of the 'must have' omni-box I kind of lost interest in the books  (no, not really lost interest, I have felt stupid, lazy and like a looser every time I have seen them) and they have just been laying around here since. Until yesterday when I returned them to the library after I had received an email from them saying 'please return the books now you dickwad, we both know it, you will never read them so why not let someone else get a chance? come on now, what do you say?'. This was several days ago, so now I own them even more money. Some times I mess these little things up for no bloody reason what so ever and let me tell you, It really sucks to do that.

Blog ideas

People and their cars

'Tack för att du gör mig hel' lappen jag hittade på gatan

Soups (5 of them)

Original people

My obsession with lists and order

Sandboxes, and my obsession with order in said boxes

Why do I only have the energy to search out the lowest price on some specific items and not all. And why is it that I can go to extremes to buy those items at the cheapest place and just ignore the other items?

Photos, cameras, camera gear, money, phones, stuff...

Yea, as you can see, I have a lot of ideas, but the creative side of me is in a state of rest at the moment. But one day I will bounce back and once again be a source of your daily procrastination routine...

Some things really get me going

Most of the time I think that I do not react especially hard on things. But some things really get me going. Pan flute Indians are one of those things. I just can not stand them. In this town they occupy the same place on the main street every summer and today was the first time that I encountered them this year. I was walking along and just caught a tone floating in the air and my brain directly came to attention. A few steps later I was certain and I stooped dead right there. I caught a glimpse of a feather and turned the stroller around and went in a circular motion around them with a couple of blocks in between. It is just what I need, another reason to not walk down to the centre of the town. (Ok, this was not one of my best rants ever, but it is the best I can produce under these conditions..)

What happened? (and quiz #10)

I have no idea what happened to me, but suddenly I stopped writing. It is a bit odd since stuff has happened that I usually would write about. Soups for one thing (Just finished a prawn bisque that was rather good if I may say so myself, and that is just one of the three that I have not told you about). Another thing is the move. We packed all our stuff in boxes (and some paper bags), transported them out the door into a car, drove the car 160m, then out of the car they came and up the elevator to the third floor (for which you have to press the button marked 4) and into our new huge (by our standards) three room (almost four since the hallway serves as a room too) apartment. Yet another thing that has happened is that I am now home full time with Tage, and that is really something to write about. And I will. But now I realize why I stopped. It was the last question in the quiz. I just could not come up with a good question. I felt that, as it was supposed to be about Simpsons, and that I am supposed to be a Simpsons nerd, the question had to be really really good. But fuck it, I will just ask about a couple of random facts and get it over with and then finally I might be able to get on with the blogging. So here goes. The last set of questions:

Who of Marge's sisters has triangular shaped earrings? (1p)
Sideshow Bob has a brother. What is his name? (1p)
What magazine did Milhouse order when he and Bart took care of the comic book store? (1p)
What crop did the family grow at the farm? (1p)
And last but not least: In the movie, Marge makes several variations of 'home sweet home' embroideries. You get 0.5 points for each version you can tell me.

(I will give you a week to answer since most of you probably has stopped looking in several times a day to see if I have written something new since I have not written something new in a long long time)

Fuck

A week ago we were very happy to cancel the combort internet as we are moving. Now that we know where we are moving to, we are very sad to realize that it seems that combort is the one and only internet provider that we can get. Fuckelifuck.

On top of that some fucked up neighbor had stolen our wash time. Being mad from the previous realization I looked them up and rang, knocked and huffed and puffed on their door until... nothing happened.
The culprit did come down to the cellar a minute later when I was trying to jimmy the lock open and he was sooo sorry. Yea. Right. Luckily for him the machines were finished so he did not have to abort the program and end up with half washed damp clothes.

Vaccine

I do not know what you are going to do, but I am going to get vaccinated when my time comes. And my reason is simple. It is cause I just know that if I don't I'll get sick and just before I die I would say 'if I just had not been so stupid and ignored the vaccine shot´. I know that the chances that I would get sick are slim almost none, but I also know that there is a law that states that if something can go wrong it will. That law is also what keeps me from downloading stuff from e.g. piratebay. I just know that if I did that now I would get caught and then used by some company as an example and be fined an infinite amount of money. Even if the stuff that I would download would be a tv-series episode, one that has been aired on tv, an episode that I hence could have recorded on my vcr and watched whenever I wanted. I could even have skipped the commercials by pressing the fast forward button. I can not get into my brain why the hell that would be illegal. I. Do. Not. Get. It. I do know that because of us downloaders (yes I used to be one) the tv-companies in Sweden started to air tv-shows with only a couple of weeks delay instead of several years as it was before. Man, I really wish I could get my thumb out of my ass and get a anonymizer service and a faster internet connection so that I could start to watch whatever I wanted instead of the crap re-runs that are on the tube... Fucking hate politics. 'no no, we will never go after the little man, that I promise you'. yea. sure.

But still. I do not download. And I will get the vaccine shot as soon as I can.

Don't you hate it when it happens?

You have been craving potato crisps for several days, but you have resisted. It has been rough but you has hung in there. And then one evening you walk over to the store and buy not one but two different kinds of crisps (sour-cream and sweet chili and the new taste Bearnaise and sour cream). You go home with a warm feeling in your belly and a secret smile on your lips. Then you spoil everything by eating to much food so that you could not force down even a handful of the lovely treat. I really hate it when it happens.