On Support Chat
Over the course of the last few days I had to spent some time in a couple of sessions in a “support-chat” to sort out some issues that I had with an order (or better the lack thereof, and the money paid for). In either of those instances the support had been understanding, friendly and helpful, yet, a few thoughts came into my mind. These were not related to the quality of the support, which was good, but more of a general type: who, or what, am I actually talking to.
This Year's Gingerbread Village
I almost forgot to put the picture’s up on here but Tiina and the kids’ have built this year’s gingerbread house, or more of a village actually. It is as great as always. As usual, there is some sugar involved and it will come “down” in the beginning of January.
And some more recently read books
During the last few months my every so frequent blogging-streak from the beginning of the year, turned into a lot-less-frequently blogging streak, but at least I continued to read and write a lot, albeit offline. I’m far away of having lost interest in blogging, but especially during the last weeks I had the feeling that the only thing worth posting would be the “yet-another-book-I-finished” post. Hence I thought it much better, and more considerate to simply summarize them and put them all into one post.
The Thing with the missed Blog-Anniversary
The beginnings of this blog are a bit in a grey zone but I remember starting blogging more or less consistently in middle of November of 2007 on the photoblog platform Pixyblog (I still remember how I set up the blog in my stupidly small teaching room with a flaky internet connection) and then eventually moved over to Wordpress where I hosted for the longest, yet ever so often tried a hotch-potch of other platforms.
The Ocean(s) at the End of the Lane(s)
Much to my surprise my expected, and already delayed delivery of the illustrated edition of Neil Gaiman’s “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” somehow managed to pass through the postal-strike and arrived yesterday! Mystified about size and weight of the package I realized after opening that I have received not one but two books! I can’t really fathom how I managed to pre-order the book twice (I actually did, had to check), yet here we are.
Another Update on my Reading List
Even though time is limited I try to read on a daily basis and additionally routinely forget to update the blog accordingly. But here are my latest finished books. My two latest arrivals As I of recently “discovered” the joy of graphic novels there are few of those, with a few more that I already have waiting to be read in my shelve. Graphic Novels Neil Gaiman: The Problem of SusanNeil Gaiman: American Gods Vol.
More new books - Just in time for Halloween
Upon first glance the “Annotated Lovecraft” is spectacular and I’m sure that I will without doubt also order the recently released second book of it. I have the “Annotated Dracula”, also by Leslie S. Klinger, already on the way as well and I have the feeling that more books like this will follow. I have read “The Graveyard Book” already twice this year, and this, graphic novel adaptation will be third time.
The forgotten Reading-List updates
It’s been a while since my last update, but in fact I read a lot during the last few weeks but didn’t quite came around posting updates. Social is hard. I know. Anyway here is now the list and I updated the Book-Log accordingly. Ray Bradbury: The Illustrated ManNeil Gaiman: Trigger WarningNeil Gaiman: The Graveyard Book (re-read)Joe Hill: Full Throttle - StoriesNeil Gaiman: Snow, Glass, Apples (Graphic Novel)Neil Gaiman: American Gods Vol.
My Neil Gaiman Book-Collection is Growing
Even though it was not planned in any way, my daily habits and doings are getting more and more analog and I find this move very enjoyable and reading an actual, physical book is, by a long shot, a much better experience than anything that a digital book has to offer. Somewhere along the lines I realized that I could save a lot of money by purchasing used books and use that saved money in the local comic book store.
Two finished Books
I finished the audiobook Margaret Atwood’s “The Testaments” the other day and it’s nothing but brilliant. Even though the faith of the two main characters is kind of pre-defined since the beginning, I found myself wondering many times what is going to happen to them. Also the story gives a bit of an insight about the “how that could happen”. In short it was a very captivating book and I frequently found myself getting extremely angry at the system in the book.
A few more Books
I had pre-ordered both the Neil Gaiman “Snow, Glass, Apples” and Randall Monroe’s “How To”. The latter I pre-ordered long ago enough to have completely forgotten about it already and it’s shipping notification confused and delighted me at the same time. This makes me wonder what else I pre-ordered at some point… Anyway, Michael Sull’s “The Art of Cursive Penmanship” is another addition in my attempt to further improve my handwriting.
The Book Thing
Last week arrived a delivery of a collection of mostly used Neil Gaiman books and the other day I purchased these two beautiful graphic novels. Also Neil Gaiman… there’s a theme hidden in there. For the last couple of years I have been mostly reading on the Kindle, which even though nice and for the greater part convenient, in hindsight leaves a feeling of having missed out on things. At the moment it feels much nicer to read an actual book.
Insta-Graphic-Novel-Purchase
We are performing with the Big Band tonight and after the soundcheck I went over to the comic book store. Looking forward to read these.
The One with the new Pen - Part 3
I have been looking into a few more pens recently, and was looking for something that is somewhere between my Kaweco Student Soul and the Lamy Safari. I like both, but find the Safari sometimes a bit too scritch-scratch and would like to have something slightly larger than the Kaweco, but first of all I wanted to own a piston pen. The TSWBI Eco series seemed to tick all the boxes, and since I couldn’t decide on a color I opted for the transparent one.
My Star Wars Lego Family
My wife surprised me with some new additions to the Lego Star Wars Family for my birthday which go nicely in the new display alongside the Falcon. Also in stealth some not-so-Star-Wars-but-equally-fun-figures and dog hair, which is apparently only visible in pictures but not in real life.
@Elojazz2019
Performing tonight at 22:00 o’clock on the Elojazz Festival with the OASBB feat. Jukkis Uotila, Timo Hirvonen and Jussi Lehtonen playing the music of Jaco Pastorius. This is going to be a fun one.
At the Kierikki Stone Age Center
We had planned to go there for a while, but today was the last possible day for us to drive out to the Kierikki Stone Age Center. It is a fun place to visit. We did some bow & arrow shooting and had a blast building our own stone-age necklaces using only the tools that were available 4000 years ago: rocks. We arrived a bit late in the day (about an hour before closing), but even with more time we probably only would have made even more necklaces.
The Falcon found a Home
For the past few years the Falcon had, due to the unavailability of a decent place to store it, resided in my closet. Thanks to a spontaneous visit to Ikea we found just the right table.
Performing in Luleå
At 20 o’clock tonight we’re hitting the stage with the newly formed Arctic Pulse Jazz Orchestra at the Luleå Hamnfestival. Soloists are Micke Holm and Stefan Gunnarsson. If any of those words make sense to you, you know where to go.
An update to my Handwriting practice
I’m rather satisfied to notice that my handwriting slowly improves. It’s not there where I would like it to be, but it is getting better. Just this morning I realized that I have reached a point in which I can write that fluently in cursive that I start to loose focus and start to make mistakes only for that reason. I took that as a good reminder to focus on being intentional while writing, and not drift off into automated behaviour, which is the reason I’m doing this is in the first place.
The (other) One with all the Domains
There’s got to be a name for that behaviour, but I moved all things back to WordPress from Blot.im and with it, also re-directed all remaining domains to this blog. Remaining? Jup, I have long stated that I own way too many domains that I have used at some point in the past, but don’t anymore, and it seemed redundant to me actually paying for them. So if you run into a blog/site with seebeck.
The One with the "Conjuring" universe
Just before going to sleep I was catching with my feed-reader and read an article on Tor.com about the latest movie in the Conjuring universe: Annabelle comes Home and got intrigued. I do enjoy a horror movie every now and then, but prefer more of the scary ones rather than just brutal ones. Especially I have a thing for the type of movies that have some kind of religious background, for example like “The Exorcist” and the likes, even though the book had been much better than the movie.
The Case of the Full and Empty Notebook
The other day I wrote on the last page my Leuchtturm 1917 and with it filled my first ever journal. I filled 250 pages in two different fountain pens and altogether five different inks. For me, that is quite the achievement and the me from the past would have thought things like this to be impossible. It turns out though, that present-me has fun writing with a fountain pen.
Only minor Action required
I have yet to re-read the book, this time with a pen to make some notes, but I can already say that the book was rather enlightening. While it not necessarily was showing things I wasn’t already aware of in one way or the other, it was very insightful to learn more about the background and learn about the studies made. As said, I will have to read it again am pretty sure I missed some things, but many of the concepts, especially those about the part of social media addiction, are things that I at the moment have no issue anymore.