Starry (warsy) Christmas

The crossed Mas has come and gone for this year. I hope many had one at least as great as I did (ahh, a calm and quiet Eve, bit more lively when the nephews showed up the next day), and I think of the ones who didn't/couldn't. Although some say the thought counts, in the end it hardly does, and I hope one day I can do something about it. But, one thing at a time. (For my own reference, I have no idea where that came from. Getting old and sentimental I suppose.) Great Christmas ham this year btw.

Watched the new Star Wars yesterday with friends in the big city. High quality cookie cutter action movie. Very well made, incredibly polished. In other words, a bit boring, one of my friends almost fell asleep. It's amazing how skilled they are at making these, it's the same shiny paste over and over and over, every time I'm invited for cinema. Fortunately I don't go so often so I save a lot of money and time of my life. Oh wait, Mad IMax was rather decent.

Strange how Rogue One ended with a close-up CG version of a young princess Leia, and now we get this sad piece of news. I never liked being too direct and I'll stay that way, we all know what piece I'm referring to. Silent geek minute, and then the next topic: CG recreations are amazingly detailed these days, too much in fact that it looks really freaky. "They" just cannot settle for the much more beautiful old trick of only showing their back, and then you go back and watch to the properly amazing original trilogy while skipping the rest. Which reminds me, I haven't watched them for some time.

Playing the brass flute turned out to be really hard, even just blowing properly into the head joint takes a lot of practice, never mind blowing octaves eventually... Fortunately I gave this hobby/challenge to my mother, I'll just keep raspin' ma fiddle, I almost have the first part of Gavotte kinda nailed down... And now my father is enjoying music through the amazing medium of 580V, if you know what I mean *nudge*. Well, whoever you are you probably don't, but I do, and this is my monthly diary, and that's good enough for me :p

Few more days and then it's lobster and champagne time! There's also something about the calendar shifting over quite a bit, but whatever, I just want good food and drink at home with my family. And the same to you all, if you actually read this nonsense!

Neverending change

Took a chance and watched the new QI with Toksvig, and was happy to see her do a really good job. She's better as a host than as a panel member. Will definitely watch the rest.

Was really happy to have a big bowl full of oatmeal after I came back from Japan, there's something special about cooking even the simplest thing compared to buying even very good ready-made food. Although very little beats yuba kaiseki:

Expensive, but one of the best courses I ever had. A one Michelin star restaurant in Gothenburg was ridiculous compared to this. Also, 3 karaoke in one visit, bit much...

Tomorrow I'll bake Swedish kanelbullar and Lussebullar and take to work on the 13th. I haven't baked for such a long time.

I tried a pair of Stax again in Tokyo, and they're really on another level compared to most other cans. Not very nice for messy/dirty music, but clean music is absolutely incredible to listen to.

Off to finish the current QI episode...

EDIT 2016-12-16: The Violent Sleep of Reason is absolutely phenomenal, their best yet. I can listen to every single thing from start to finish, headbanging secretly inside my mind at work. Carpenter Brut is still up there as well of course. And today I started trying Gavotte on the violin, great fun to almost be able to play something actually musical in contrast to the Etüden I'm torturing myself with the rest of the time.

And how about some more photos, first a rare event that I was fortunate enough to experience in Tokyo:
Morning 1:
Morning 2:
Next, I made these for a guest who comes to GSI twice a year:

I was told this was a second order gift... I just like folding, giving things away to make people smile. and then go into hiding, normally I throw everything in the trash bin.

Earthquake

Funnily enough, I experienced my first earthquake ever in Germany two years ago or so on a grill party in Eberstadt. 1-2 s of very violent shaking, I thought a truck had rammed the building even long after some people suggested an earthquake. In Darmstadt, really? Ya rly.

After many years and lots of travels to Japan, especially during the last two years, I finally got to experience a decent long lasting earthquake in Japan, although it was quite mild where I am staying. Last week there was a super-small one that I felt while trying in vain to fall asleep in bed. The one last morning immediately got all over the news, largely because of the tsunami warning around Fukushima. What's been going on there the last few years btw, the media promised us ultra danger and catastrophes with radioactive fish? They cannot have been full of crap regarding a scientific topic yet again? Anyway, this one was a ~3 on the Richter scale in Tokyo, or Wako to be more relevant here, so it was very calm and comfortable rocking although with a quite large amplitude. Doors between rooms and to cupboards wanted to shake loose, but they're prepared for that here in Japan with all kinds of little contraptions.

The accelerator at RIBF closed down for a few minutes, ran some diagnostics, and then the Ne experiment continued. Business as usual.

First two experiments finished, and I did a lot of origami, actually way too much. I might take some photos. If you put a box of 1000 kami in the same room as me, that box is gonna get it. So, time to prepare for the next one, which is a pretty interesting approach, something to do with measuring "incredibly" short life times (shorter have been measured/estimated for very specific physics cases, but all things considered etc...), won't say exactly what, just to be sure. Oh right, end-of-beam party tomorrow evening!

Get Trumped

EDIT 2016-11-11: Uhm, somehow managed to delete the original post. Anyway, it said something along the lines of "let's see, maybe this is what the world actually needs". Judging from the first day, hm, yes and no. Yes, because it's brought to light what is actually, really, literally going on deep down and the state/machinations of the system. No, because it's straight out of an Oliver Stone film. In a little while we'll see how the rest of the world will be affected.

Rosin

Took a good chunk out of the sour apple and paid up for yet another violin rosin. Which turned out to be a great buy, and whoever cannot make out any difference between rosins must be an old-school banging-hammer-against-anvil smith or a Paul Bunyan. So, I now have the Hill Dark for aggressive grip, and the new Bernardel when I need to be soft and swift. Quite a bit stickier than the Hidersine 3V that came with my violin outfit still. Buying this was really only painful when I hit the Confirmation button, rosins aren't so expensive considering how incredibly long they last, I still have some... Actually, I still have a lot of blank spots on the top of my Hill cake. And now I should have all the rosins I'll ever need for my entire life.

I also ordered a new set of Corelli New Crystal strings since they're known for being cheap, warm, and have very quiet projection, plus a Spector mute which takes away the most shrill high overtones which is perfect for practice. The heavy duty practice mutes that cover the entire bridge really kills a lot of flair, but playing without any mute at all will damage the ears. A little thing like the Spector & co makes long-term sessions a little mellower and sweeter. Fyi, I've noticed that the heavy duty rubber mutes tend to kill certain notes/strings a lot more than the metal ones, the latter are a lot more consistent. Too bad they dent the bridge.

Days or even weeks (months have happened, usually correlated with price) of researching things is rather painful, but in the end, one tends to end up with pretty solid purchases.

Dark Souls is an incredibly beautiful game btw, thought I should remind myself so I don't forget. Too bad it's known only for being ridonculously difficult.

Currently reorganizing some stagnant ugly code at work to support some new (old new) stuff. Generalizing code is like an intervention; very painful, but in the end it's usually worth it.

Just before the weekend, I realized I had never roasted a whole chicken before. Somewhat embarrassed of this life long void, I bought one and fed myself for the full weekend. I should cook more.

EDIT 2016-10-27: I just found a batch of childhood memories, mainly old Disney shorts:

• Fish Police - Once the memory hit me, it took hours to find...
• The Brave Engineer - This. Right here. One of the most influential thing for me in how I see things and think. I remember almost every single sequence since the last time I saw it when I was only a few years old. When I build Lego Technic, I see parts of this short. When I draw things, the pictures I conjure up stem from this. When I play games, when I watch other cartoons, when I see trains and straight lines and nature and movement in real life, this is in the back of my head. Always. How it took this long for me to bring it into my clear consciousness, I don't know. It made my life. Windwagon Smith is on a very close 2nd place, What's Opera Doc on 3rd, all the cliff faces and rocks of Roadrunner next.

And then came the yt suggestion onslaught:

• Chicken Little - I never understood any of it, but I remember it vividly: the weird chicken with a jojo, even the wish bones in lines in the cave earth floor at the end. I had no idea how dark it was, I just knew I loved wishbones in chickens after this. And here I thought Ren & Stimpy was dark... Rather unrelated trait of mine, but this is why I always take a 90 degree turn from the stream. Ah yes, I wondered why there were so many sleepy Donald Ducks in it.
• Lambert the Sheepish Lion - Oh my goodness the memories unfold clear as day. The stork, the lambs with the sideburns... La-a-a-mbert, lala la la la La-a-a-mbert. When I think of storks delivering babies, this is the one and only.
• The Ugly Duckling - I'll almost be that guy forever.
• Figaro & Cleo - Striped socks, the melodies, the broom, I wished balls of yarn would behave that way, I was upset my grandfather's fishing floats did not look like the one in there, I though the rolling pin trick was real, and on and on.
• Goofy & Wilbur - Long before "WIIIILSOOOON!", there was "WIIIILBUUUUR!". Too many things to count, I even remember the way Goofy's glove creased around his thumb when Wilbur snuggled up to it. So many details in there somewhere. I have a feeling someone rushed the end, already had the feeling back in the days.

I feel strange tonight having watched all of them...

Edit, same evening: I almost forgot!

• Saludos Amigos - Pedro fighting against Açoncagua (hail Colemak for having me type "ç" on my first guess), one of the scariest things on the TV for me as a kid, and the beautiful end Brazil. The way the world was painted (I though you could paint palm trees like that, *splat*), again the music, esp. the flute, even the cabin above the city towards the very end.

And Disney will never do these things again. Fortunately, once, they did.

EDIT 2016-11-08: Some photos of the violin gear I mentioned earlier:

First and second photo, rosins from left to right: Hill Dark, Bernardel, and Hidersine 3V. Third and fourth photo: closeups of the Spector mute to show the lip that goes over the bridge, I was looking everywhere for this without success, my good deed for the world this time.

Time for Nissin shiifhuudo nuudoru breakfast!

All this traveling

Went to St Petersburg for a collaboration meeting some weeks ago. Rather nice city, a tad too much gold, which seems like an absurd thing to say... Proof:

Nice to look at still.

And now I'm in Japan again, chomping down on the best food in the world. Had another all-nighter last night, which started with a lot of yakiniku in Shinjuku. The name server in the cave is anyhow down after the power-switch cut yesterday morning, so one particular computer cannot boot. Going back the coming week, then I'll go yet again in three weeks for three experiments... Hence the title.

Waiting for my pre-ordered copy of the Violent Sleep of Reason lying somewhere in my apartment in Germany. What I've heard so far sounds great. Seems like they've started looking at what their offspring has offered, which is not the good part, they have some proper Meshuggah stuff. I wonder what the lead guitarist is working on.

Bowing away when I can. Been thinking a bit about the form for my hands recently, looked into non-playing practices. Never liked them, they tend to do my head in, but they help in the end.

Gotta get back to being tired.

WinX

Finally tested Windows 8.1 Pro with my super-old key, and immediately upgraded to Windows 10. The upgrade was rather nice except for the creepy black screens and the slowly fading text messages. The big "but" came after having installed a few things and accidentally going into sleep mode while installing Visual Studio Community 2015; I got the chance to experience the dreaded automatic repair loop of infinity. No advanced options or online advice worked. Now, Microsoft has been learning, so I could simply pop in a Windows 10 USB and install it with my Windows 8.1 Pro key, lovely. Installed one thing, rebooted, installed the next thing, rebooted, and so on. Now it's running. Rather well in fact. Quite happy. At last they have flat, solid backgrounds with simple text and borders, and it looks almost as good as hwm, my own X11/XCB window manager...

Another finally: I'm beyond etüde 30 in Wohlfahrt! The 30th is quite weird, the 31th is a bunch of scales in the 3rd position which is a lot more fun. Strange how for two days last week, I couldn't play at all. Then I took two days off, and since then I've been playing like a god (humbly speaking). It's a good feeling to know that years of practice actually works... Vibrato is still a pain in the whatnot, as is Bach.

As a young programmer, I never understood the point with UML. To be honest, I still don't really, but what I do like these days is making little Graphviz dot files, and splitting up projects that way. Even starting out becomes much easier once you have the dependencies of various parts of a project straightened out. And testing surfaces are a lot more obvious this way too. Still wondering why my texture synthesizing project got off track, I'd love to get that going properly...

Bourne again and cartoons

I'm surprised they haven't gone for that title yet. Just another big budget ridiculous trashing fest disguised as a modern action movie. The first one will forever be the magical one. They tried to play the theme a few times, but that just doesn't work if nothing else feels like the first movie.

I saw a "40 90s cartoon intros in Swedish" plus "another 30" in the recommended sidebar on youtube, and some of my most peculiar childhood memories popped up. Here's a list of things I recall the most vividly, generally with a mix of fascination, mystery, and fear:

• Windwagon Smith by Disney. Hauntingly beautiful.
• What's opera, Doc? aka Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit! The second half simply scared the crap out of me.
• Asterix vs Caesar, when Asterix almost drowns in the basement.
• Superman, the Mummy Strikes! Brilliant mummy scare.
• Dunderklumpen. I never understood any of it, but I loved the word "dunderklumpen". I think I have it mixed up with a clip from something similar where they did some magic with perforated cylinders and scarfs.
• Skrotnisse. Freaky Swedish series with dolls, I still don't know how it ends. "Ture Björkman blir apa." The Dark Eye is nothing compared to this.
• The Trap Door. Never understood any of it, didn't scare me, but I always wanted more of that skull. Just watched some of it, I remember it a bit differently.

I shall update this list as I recall others. Thinking about these things, one starts to understand how little one has noticed of how much has changed... Life's not forever. "Never grow up, never surrender!" was my motto, I must embrace it again!

EDIT 2016-08-20: Added The Trap Door. And no more Banshee... At least we got one decent fight at the end.

Godzilla

... from 2014 is crap. I'll try Toho's recently released version at some point.

It seems like I have started a tradition of folding something every time I'm at home, so photos:

That one book by Tomoko Fuse that my parents bought decades ago is amazing.

I also saw a complete double rainbow the other day, didn't go out and take photos of it though. Must be a good summer. And tomorrow is the last day of my vacation, at least I'll have my new violin again.

Btw, the Yamaha THR10X is an amazing amp.

A lot less programming jargon these days, huh?

EDIT 2016-08-08: Shin Gojira looks amazing, that guy is already on my desktop. If I would be there now, I would watch it, in full IMAX glory. But I'll have to wait.

Swedish summer

A "cool" Swedish summer, when I'm the most efficient and useful. The occasional hot day with lots of sun and with nothing to do is also nice, but I always preferred "doing" stuff. Heat doesn't help then.

My next important step in getting better at the violin is playing every combination of double stops in the first position in various scales, while still calibrating against open strings. Just under 30 in Wohlfahrt, it took a little while getting used to my old family student violin, and besides, the beam time kept me away. But I finally see the big difference between the two violins. The old student violin is sturdier, has steel strings, and keeps the intonation for years. My new one is more airy and has synthetic strings, but the intonation goes off 100% every day. Some pros are better than some cons though, my new violin is a lot nicer to play with.

It's funny how carbohydrates get a bad name when it comes to food, but the super old generation on Okinawa eats a lot of carbohydrates, plus a lot of vegetables and a little fish. I never really understood the concept of modern "fitness", but isn't a long life a better indication of fitness than how much your veins pop out of your skin? Personally, I try to listen to my belly whether what I'm eating is good for me or not. Too often though, I think "bah, quiet you" :p Time to change that.

I've picked up some Japanese studies again as well. It seems like when I try something for a short while, let it grow somewhere in the back of my head, and then come back to it, I progress a lot easier and faster. That's why you read (good) books twice, once fast, once slow. Change the verb and noun accordingly, and apply to most everything in life.

I'll also try to run a little more regularly, and perhaps not 13 km every time. Pumping blood is one of the best ways of keeping one's brain in shape, so why not? I like running, I think there's an old post of me mentioning the wonderful feeling of looking to the side, seeing fields and houses bouncing away with every step.

Some not so great news too, but there are people in this world devoted to making it a better place. I'd like to as well, only my way will not be quite as direct and obvious. It's about time to

When I get back, I'll start planning my huge origami project. My apartment will look weird for some time, folding 2x 2x1 m^2 pieces of paper on the floor will required some modifications.

And boy is getting to Russia a big ordeal, the only reason I go there is for work to be honest. I've added a few days for sight-seeing with some young co-workers, as I probably won't go back for some time.

Because of no photos for some time, here are some shots from Bergtempelstigen up to Taberg, I forced my older brother to join me:

Time for violin practice in the living room!

Twin peaks

So, I got into a Lynchian mood lately. After the joke that was the U, Xe, and will be C beam time (I blame myself somewhat for not staring over people's shoulders half a year in advance, but they're adult physicists so whatever, although I still help them late evenings and weekends while they leave work and enjoy "life", whatever that is), I needed a shot and decided to watch Eraserhead. Puzzled and intrigued, I continued with Twin Peaks, and I'm enjoying it a bunch. I don't know what to think or feel, it's one of those things that will take some take to at all understand. Loving it. Also, I had been wondering for so long where that bass + tremolo line came from, hearing it in the Twin Peaks pilot allowed the white spots on my maxillary central incisors (my upper front teeth) to blind a welder. One mystery solved. About a hundred unfolded. For some, it's a burden, for some others, a chance to ponder more, and for yet some others, it shows how we read into things. I want to watch Eraserhead again, but I'll need some new real life experiences before I do.

Almost half-way through Wolhfahrt by now, playing the late 20:s, and at around 30 I'll have to go up the neck. Already tried scales up there myself, so I'm ready! Oh yeah, woke up today, picked up my violin with a D string way out of tune, increased the tension, *snap*. Almost died. I thought about going to Crucius downtown, but since I'm paranoid about everything outside my door (and careless about most things inside), I browsed for music stores nearby and noticed they're about to close. Found Arnold, which even has a violin builder, biked there through rain, and bought a Pirastro Wondertone Solo D string. Remarkably more metallic than the somewhat tame Corelli Crystals that came with the violin, very nice. And man, violin strings are expensive, one can get 3-4 full sets of super e-guitar strings for the price of one violin string. Playing the guitar is a lot easier and "fun", but playing the violin makes me happier. I always was a violin player I think, I play the guitar like I wish I could play the violin. Nothing else takes me out of the darkness faster or better. Now if only I was good at it...

This strange post was fueled by my new-found interest in experimental visual media, finally a good bottle of red wine I found at the local supermarket, a bottle of beer, and way too strong homemade Swedish glögg that I diluted in the fine wine with a little sugar. I don't like the after effects, but the past two beams and the one to come up have taken quite a toll. And I know I will have a beautiful cleansing bowl of oatmeal next morning, plus some more violin practice with a shiny new string.

It's funny how differently one thinks as one gets older. I shall finish this post with that.

So, Doom 4

I suddenly noticed yt was flooded with Doom 4 videos (yeah that's right, Doom 4, not Doom), that's how I learnt about its release... I was always skeptical, and after having watched quite a bit of it, still am. Now, it looks like an incredibly fun and good-looking way of increasing your blood pressure and I'd love to try, but it reminds me more of Q2/4 than Doom. Quake 2 was the unholy merger of flesh and machine, Doom and Quake were foremost fleshy and strange with a few robotic limbs later on. And they really went for that stupid Cyberdemon design. The Spider Mastermind is just a touch better, but it's all still rather Blizzardy, cuddly, and silly. Where's the bleakness, horror, and twisted things? Why do games have to be either red hot orange or stone cold blue? It's very gory, but it's not sick. I've probably watched too much trash since I played Doom when I was a kid. Anyway, whenever the price goes down a bit, I'll have a blast and I think I'll love it. It's just not Doom :p

Bought white and green asparagus straight from the fields for my weekend. Or rather, from the farm shop close to my workplace. I prefer just a small amount of melted butter to Hollandaise sauce, it's lighter somehow if that makes any sense... But the greens are still my favorite. Also tried my homemade sauerkraut today, which is surprisingly easy to make. Every day I was fearing the return of the killer mold, but the sauerkraut held its own in its glass jar. I'll make a little more next time, and let it sour up quite a bit more as well.

Beam time soon. Will be busy busy, didn't get to do what I was supposed to do the last few weeks because of general stupid.

Learning to play the violin takes time. I get better at things, slowly, but man, does it take time... I'm looking at my overall progress rather than the set of insignificant tunes that I can at all render, since I already know my main goal. Most importantly, when it goes well, it's amazing, and that's why I keep at it.

Sleepiteesleep.

Sakura

Time is moving slowly here. And I do not mind.

So, the development of sakura, in chronological order (although I tended to photograph the "bloomiest" trees throughout):

And of course the food is spot on like usual.

In other news, I rewrote my hconf C auto-confing thing. I tried to make it more simple and transparent at the expense of some ease of use, each hconf:d file presenting its own separate results. A properly setup Makefile runs quite a bit faster than the previous config blob method. I'm still partial to the old method, but I should move on.

In flight films

In Japan again, writing this from the visitor's room in the Nishina building at RIKEN. I watched a few films on the plane:

The Martian: No surprises here, it played out exactly as expected. The one thing that stood out was the gosh dang awful CG in the beginning. Overall it looked fine throughout the film, but the first few sequences shown before one of the antagonists, the proverbial, and in this case actually literal, storm, made its entry, looked like 3D modeler examples from the 90s (comma-o-rama!). More fun than the prettier Gravity and heavier Interstellar, but 2001, Apollo 13, and Cast Away did the really interesting bits better. It will take a long time before I watch it again.

Spectre: Again no surprises. I have to admit I'm one of the boring old gits who prefer the old style James Bond. Most probably the same problem as with the Nolan Batman films as my brother explained it, they try to be too serious about something rather silly. A secret agent with a licence to kill with a bunch of gadgets and an appetite, and a very rich orphan who fights crime while dressed up as a bat. The reverse would be to prepare a very intricate meal and then serving it on a paper plate, at least in my head.

Carnage: The most interesting film of the flight, although I cannot identify with many of the actions and reactions of the characters. Things are depicted in a way to make a lively film about a "mundane" situation, and even if it's rather forced at times I enjoyed it. Four regular people (except they're all famous actors) in an apartment for 1.5 hours.

For the rest of the journey I tried to sleep, and I'm still trying... Went to a party immediately after arriving, thought the drinks would make it easier to sleep, attempt failed. And NeuLAND is running quite ok after just 1.5 days of setting up.

Worked until 20:20 on a Saturday, time for dinner.

EDIT 2016-03-20: Some other things:
It took a little while for me to realize, which by the way is the best way for me to find my favourites in whatever topic, but Carpenter Brut's Trilogy is incredible. Perturbator is still nice and I cannot wait for the full version of Assault, but some of the compositions and melodies on Trilogy are really something else. 347, Roller, Trazy Tzu, Sexkiller, Hang 'em all, Paradise, are just some of all the songs I go back to and I tend to have only a few on every album I own... I'm so glad I bought the AH-D2000:s, but while in Japan I'll have to make do with my cheapo earbudsoe.
However, the best piece of music ever is Perlman playing BVW1004 from the "famous" BBC Radio 3 broadcast. Now a pair of Stax on that...
Also 7 days to die is some of the most fun I've had in a game for a very long time, it's too bad it's really badly made.

EDIT 2016-03-24: The sakura is about to explode all over Japan by now, I'm seeing the development live as I walk towards and from the RIKEN cantine. At lunch time one day, there were only a few buds slowly opening up, but at dinner I could see quite a lot of flowers. Transformation still in progress, me documenting with camera.

Behold, the cube

This is the only thing that's happened lately, took a tour today in the newly built Green Cube IT facility at GSI. Some random pics:

Oh right, I have a contract at the University from the 1st of March, which is kind of ironic. I hope.

And I'm going to Japan again, this time in spring! Cherry blossoms, here I come! Got quite a few things to work on over there though, so we'll see if I manage to squeeze any photos out of the trip.

Also, having a big talk next week. About things I don't really know about, so I've been reading up lately. Fun.

Almost 1/5th through Wohlfahrt. Hill dark rosin works very well, I have no need for anything else. The Götz fine tuner works a treat, and the Pirastro Gold E does sound pretty nice, even on my cheap student violin. Quite a bit further ahead in Sakurai. Slow but steady on all fronts.

Tried Taylor of Old Bond Street Rose shaving cream, man does that lather up fast. Going through a sampler pack of blades too, Feather is indeed very sharp compared to others.

Enough of this :)

Finally, another thing out of the way

Syberia 2. Played through most of Syberia 1 in front of a TV many years ago with a friend of mine at University, but I think I restarted some years later and finished it myself. Pretty sure I've mentioned this game in a previous post... Except for some ridiculous automatons, it's a nice puzzle game. Syberia 2 had a lot going for it, but was plagued heavily by incredibly silly situations and puzzles. I'm fine with silly puzzle games, but Syberia shouldn't have fallen into that. Ending was rather abrupt. Good, not great. But it feels good to have completed that story, it was enjoyable most of the time.

Been playing a lot more Grim Dawn recently, which I should, considering I Kickstarted the thing back in ancient times. It really is the best hacker slasher yet, and people are making some very interesting character builds. I managed to end Salazar right after the Warden with my Conjurer, although my toon must have contracted something bad from all the potions she had to chug. Might give Gutworm a try. Still, my all time favorite is Titan Quest. It felt so good to run out into the sunshine among the mountains, cross a bridge over a gorge only to stare into the eyes of a bull on fire. I don't understand why people need games to be all black and gothic, you anyhow have enemies who are happy to slice your guts open, and that's really the part that should set the mood, no? I just wish the song in Helos would be played more than only once...

Made nabe (Japanese pot) two days in a row during the weekend. Easy, healthy, inexpensive (if you can get inexpensive Japanese kombu). I'll probably make this quite often from now on, and buy a bit/lot more kombu next time I'm in Japan.

I suppose this post was to make up for the lack of posts during the late fall. Because this is all I have :p

EDIT a little later: I also watched the most recent and last film by Miyazaki and his team, The Wind Rises. Very different. His films tend to have a profound heavy subject, but in this case the heavy subjects were right in front of you. Still lovely, had all the details one would expect. I don't understand some of the criticism though, especially the complaints about the main protagonist designing fighter planes. Did they at all watch the film? But yes, very different.

Recap and outlook

Took a break.

So, 2015. I went to 4 business trips to Japan, I ordered a Gliga Gems 2 violin while I was on the 1st trip and started playing on the 17th of February when I set my foot in my apartment again, did my 1st half marathon in ~1:38 after three training sessions, listened to, watched, and had a few good heart attacks while Hilary Hahn blasted Beethoven's Opus 61 in Berlin, went to the US again to witness a very good friend getting tied down/up and I met some other very lovely people, finally built an ODAC+O2 combo, an epiphany about my life and the current job I have struck me right in my face during a meeting, and... I turned 30. Don't really care about that, but apparently it's a big deal to a lot of people, so I thought I'd mention it. Had way too much to drink at concentrated occasions. It was quite a good year.

Surprise, no hoverboards.

So, 2016. Keep violining. Keep running (actually I've only had one run since my vacations in summer...). Do something about my current life and work. Finish my current gamedev project. Drink much less when going out. Now, not considering how incredibly huge some of those points are (not the last one), I think I'll have a lot to do.

Oh, almost forgot, I hope everybody had a merry Christmas, and will have a happy 2016. Or zoib. The year of the zoib. Gonna go to bed, because tomorrow, I again leave cold, dark Sweden and go to not so cold, not so dark Germany.

Silly symphonies, eh, sorry, photos: