A white Christmas, finally

After many many years, we finally have a white Christmas here in southern Sweden, neat! At ~ -15 C, it's sometimes even colder than Kiruna up north at ~ -10 C, funny.

But not everybody celebrates Christmas, I still get work-related messages :p I don't mind working at strange times, but I don't like how so many don't and I need to make up for that somehow. Many names on large experiments, and in the end a minority straps in and pushes. Not the dream, but someone's gotta do it. It's taking a toll on my health, I seriously need to change this... Taking it easy at home now though!

Hope y'all had a crackly crazy Christmas!

EDIT 2021-12-28: Don't Look Up is absolute trash. Uh, what is up with those IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes scores?! ... Idiocracy was great fun when I was younger and it lost its charm with time, but it's still a lot better. Even Red Notice was more entertaining, and believe it or not, less stupid. Alright, back to some work... I thought I was supposed to have vacation -_-

Origalorian

Origami is great for Christmas decorations, just takes a lot of work:

30 red papers, 60 green, Tomoko Fuse of course. Will have to choose a nice place for it, I shouldn't hide it in my little office.

Finally got around to watching some of the Mandalorian. As my favorite "reviewers" say, it's ok. Not terrible, not great, very TV showy although well put together. Worst thing is that Gus Fring is in it, urg. Close second is that Mandough had to take his helmet off, but it was part of the robot arc so not the worst. Best thing, hmm, not as obvious, probably that it's not as bad as the sequels, if a sentence like that makes any sense. Yet another thing that shouldn't really be under the Star Wars label. I still won't pay the rat myself. Oh wait, I mean Disney. Btw how many things does Favreau do?

Turned out Larsen Tzigane is not for me. I thought I'd like soft strings, but they feel mushy and the supposedly complex spectum makes the sound somehow less sparkly. They're not bad, however I like the good old Dominant + Gold E better. I'll try the cheap Pirastro Tonica (discount Dominant, nice) next, but I'll play the Tziganes 'til their natural demise. Been thinking about trying some rosins too, but what I should actually do is just play more and stop thinking.

Almost Christmas!

Seriously kanelbullar

I need to make some for work. This weekend. No excuses.

So I had a few days at CERN in the end. Was, eh, funny. Apparently experiments and beam times are equally chaotic almost everywhere I go... It's a great place, was nice to see my supervisors from yesteryear, but I'd prefer having more time there. Had to figure out most FOOT things on my own at GSI in the end, the detectors kinda run together now very much like the gang in Mad Max 2. I hope I get a micro break from it now that it's gone to Jülich, I really would like some quality me time the next few days. One intense day of work for a bunch of other things, then weekend. Oh dear violin I miss you so.

Made pumpkin pie with someone else, I've wanted to do that for many years and it finally happened! The spices remind me of ginger bread, was a nice autumn sweet. I need to do something with the remaining half before it rots, which it probably already started doing by now. I need to get out of this wheel.

My biorhythm has gone even deeper down the mud, but tonight is the night I go to bed before midnight. Really. Ok here I go.

No kanelbullar!

Oh no. I forgot about the beautiful Swedish cinnamon roll day, the 4th of October. Hmm, gotta find time one evening this week to make some. I haven't been cooking or baking anything "nice" for a very long time, only upheld the basics. Started looking around a little lately, I should learn more simple things to expand my miniscule repertoire.

Looks like I'll spend a week at CERN to figure out ALPIDE and FOOT, and then another 2-3 weeks at JINR for more short-range correlations. That's almost too much traveling, and those two places require more preprations than I'd like. Anyway, I'll do my best to enjoy it.

Musafia Luxury Classic Dart looks amazing... Gotta git gewd. And gotta fix my biorhythm, it's in the gutter :p

Two little vacations

Had two vacations this summer, because more is more. The whole deal had to be orchestrated a bit between the experiment, my passport running out, and two vaccinations, of which the second is only "valid" after 14 days. Got a one-way business ticket again, nice. The passport office in my hometown was fully booked, so had to travel for 2 h to Hultsfred. Nice people there, was a pleasant change from German service hospitality :p Which is not all bad, but the Swedish vibe is for sure different. Took it very easy in Sweden, leafed through Sakurai again, nice for a relaxing holiday...

The second vacation went the other way, to warmer latitudes. More than two weeks went by without touching a computer, seriously. I hiked a lot and did some other outdoors activities in beautiful places, met some new very nice people, had excellent food. Was a great experience, and today on my first day at work, other people said I haven't been this relaxed and happy since I arrived at GSI. Probably even longer than that. I feel it too, no headache like I've had for many, many mornings starting already late last year. I also need better routines for many things in life, like staying away from the computer more...

I need to put more time into my violin playing! When it's good, it feels great. Vibrato is taking so long to learn, but I'm getting there. I still know what I want to play.

So many things playing in my head now, I don't know what else to jot down this time... Let's say I have some new strength and motivation, and insights in my future :)

EDIT 2021-09-01: Oh no I forgot, RIP Sean Lock, the best quiz show comedian. Way too soon :(

Halfway invincible

First shot of Comirnaty taken care of, last week. Now I gotta wait another 5 weeks or get Covid and I'll be immortal. Regarding side-effects, it was fine in the beginning with small pains around the injection area. That disappeared and now my hand has gotten a little weak and I have a stiff neck on the left side. Not great, but overall I can do the same things as always (just need to be careful while carrying full large pots with one hand, which is anyhow not a great idea...), and there are many worse stories.

It's been a long and arduous series of experiments, and it's been difficult to accomplish much else. Went on a hike in the Rhön, and on a little boat trip on the Rhein which was very inspiring. Very little energy, focus, and time for violin, origami, or other hobbies that require large chunks of my abilities. Summer vacation will be extra nice this time around...

Bernardel rosin is for sure much, much nicer than Hill Dark, I should just throw away the latter one and forget about it.

Speaking of forgetting things, I watched the Hateful Eight, apparently again. I didn't remember having seen the whole thing, I just recognized short parts and remained confused throughout. That film is mottled with short great sequences while the rest and overall arch are so forgettable. I need to remember not to watch it again :p Oh right, I for some sick reason decided to watch the remake of Ghost in the Shell. Oof. Ugh. Why. Well, somehow not as forgettable as the Hateful Eight, but as unforgettable as tripping into dog poo, I would imagine. My goodness why did I watch this garbage, when I could just watch the original, or a fly stuck inside a glass for 2h.

A week and a half until vacation back home, wohoo!

Been a while

So much weirdness at work the last few months... Not something I intend to write up, but certain things will be tricky at work going forward, for the first time ever I'll need to think twice about my actions. One of the difficult things did lead to a massive improvement, so yay, but it didn't come cheap. Other than that, well, I really don't want to say anything about the experiments either, there's no point doing that here, I'll know my own opinions forever ;) Three experiments down, one more to go in a few weeks and then it's time for other campaigns.

I recently found Steven Wilson on one of my journeys through the yt recommended lists. I really liked the cover art for "The Raven That Refused to Shut Up" or something like that and clicked because I like danger, huehue. The album started fun, I read the comments of course, and noticed that they weren't just "I love Steven Wilsooon!" (pop ref) or "I love prooog!" (no ref), there was something in the comments that made me try a little harder. I'm sure I've mentioned before I've needed a few listens to appreciate my favorite albums, and this was the same. Excellent stuff. Continued with "Hand. Cannot. Erase." whose title song is so very different to what I normally listen to but it's great, and "12 Things I Regret" from "The Future Bites" is also great. Check him out, beautiful music.

Found a little "lake" in the middle of the forest close to GSI last Sunday, it was pretty with the sun shining gently through the clouds. Might seem a silly thing to report here, for some reason I wanted to have it here.

So tired, mostly because of work. I'm sure more happened since last time, but the three things above were really the important bits. Now it's def. spring, car drivers are starting to drive crazily and carelessly, the Wixhausen hanami was nice, and life goes on, let's see which way we all choose to follow this time :)

EDIT 2021-05-08: How could I call myself a nerd without having watched Star Trek? So I started with TOS just recently. It's dated for sure, but it's relatively clever stuff, even the pilot without the mythical Shatner got me hooked. Voyager was a really silly version that tainted my taste, it's too bad I started with that on TV as a kid. I'll probably go for TOS, TNG, and DSN, in that order, and skip everything else. Let's shatter the final frontier!

Sibelius duet

Stayed up for the entire Sibelius stream by Twosetviolin! I was nervous at first, but then it was clear quite early on that they had kept to the 40 hours routine... Great stuff, great fun! I should join more live online concerts. More than anything though, I gotta practice myself...

About to start on some origami pangolin scales. Some 200 or so re-ordering folds, I need to find the time to lose myself in that.

I also don't understand why some people complain about FFP2 masks, they're a lot nicer with their stiffer structure so they don't plaster your face. Do your cardio to have strong lungs and you'll be fine, force that air through.

It's 4:34, I require sleep.

EDIT 2021-01-30: Blade Runner 2049 returned to Netflix, I've wanted to have a 2nd go at it for a while. Why is such a vapid film so highly praised? I love sci-fi and the original Blade Runner was amazing. In this new-fangled thing, the opening already puts me off, the world feels so very different from the original yet the film insists on reproducing devices and sounds, it does the obvious follow-up story with birthed replicants (the one thing I liked about "Arrival" was its original take, too bad it was so silly), the "antagonist" Herr Wallace-san is like cartoon Ren, Joi is some symbolism about the tech safe zones/prisons we make ourselves or whatever, and it's all just banal and meh. I cannot care about what anybody in the film feels or dreams of. I'll finish it because a couple of times the film gets it just right for half a minute and gives you that sense of mysterious warmth (good cosmic horror?) that the original did, even though the world was cold and wet. Terrible insight from me, but I just don't like it so I'm not gonna spend any more time explaining why not, and who cares anyway :p It's shit out of ten, Tucker & Dale vs Evil has more depth.

EDIT 2010-02-10: That score at the end of my last edit was a bit harsh, but I stand by it. Watched Sunshine a few days ago, a film I've wanted to see for a good while, but for some reason I didn't think it would be this good. It's one of those highly praised but unsuccessful films that gather a devout following, but leave many untouched unfortunately. Now, ignoring a wild explanation for the dying sun, too much artifical gravity (I only thought of this towards the end, I should hand back my Ph.D.), and a silly ending act (the "extra" should've been an error to seed paranoia, then this film would have been 10/10), this is absolutely stupenduous sci-fi. "Kaneda, what do you see?!" That scene will stay with me forever, like no scene in Blade Runner 2047 will. The main focus in sci-fi for me is not hi-tech, lazer blasterz, or the next obvious step. To me, in simple terms, fantasy is about a different reality to act in, drama is about people in societies or communities, thriller is about lurking danger, and sci-fi is about the limits of our perception. Just think about the word combo "science fiction", and what has made great science. This is why Arrival was interesting except the main subject turned out to be a single mother-daughter relationship (nothing bad with that, it's just so small for sci-fi) and the sci-fi part was the ride, and Annihilation had a nice mysterious premise except everything in there was or became stupid, but Sunshine... Oh Sunshine, most of it is super solid, among my top sci-fi:s now. It's like if Event Horizon was great.

Zozi

zozi ~= susy -> finally evidence for super symmetry this year? Let's hope!

As for 2020, hum not much to say is there? Shows how well the previous "happy new year" worked :p

I don't do resolutions, not sure what I've written about that before, but we should all keep looking above the horizon and aim there. The angle shouldn't be too steep, but it should be upwards!