Snapshot: Smokebox problems

Smokey is having problems in her smokebox, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

It is not easy being a cat... or maybe it is easy, the camera just isn't fast enough to catch the speed...

OK snapshot: 'Veboa' by night

Out in the country (=Barking Dog Plaza) we are keeping the fire going! -17
degrees C outside, plus 25 C inside. (Americans, that is about 0 F outside
and 80 degrees inside.

'Veboa' = wood shed (really, it is vedbod, OK is just a bit accented).
Photo by OK, posted by Lena.

In memoriam, kind of, and Quote of the Day

TV dinners, say no more! Wink wink, nudge nudge... No, Monthy Python never made a skit about TV dinners but they could have done that. Imagine a dead parrot filet inside a foil package. "This parrot is not dead, it is just stunned!"

OK, I admit I have bought and eaten TV dinners earlier when my life was rather despaired (PP will be horrified by these news). In Sweden I don't even know if you can buy them, but I guess so, even if I have no idea what they are called. "TV-middagar?" It is simply overcooked, overfrozen, divided dishes in minuscule portions in a plastic or foil tray so you can eat it while you are watching the latest show on TV, and it saved lots of times for housewifes and men alike. Originally they were heated in the oven, but these days it is all microwavable.

TV dinners started in the 50s and apparently are still going strong based on the meters and meters of freezer space in the store that are occupied by HungryMan's steak and gravy, Swanson's turkey meatloaf, etc. I am often filled by a mixture of amazement and sadness when I see what people have in their shopping carts at the store - TV dinners, soda, cheese sticks, chips, and maybe some ready cut carrots and fruits. And this is the regular, not the unusual.

I haven't eaten a TV dinner in probably 10 years, and I am not planning to eat any more ever. I remember them as being bland, salty, boring, and ugly. But when you are hungry, you eat. I remember that the kids hated them - good job kids, you knew better already then. More pasta with homemade pesto, beer butt chicken, and green chili stew for the people!

Woody Allen is the source for the quote of the day:
"Why bother to cook TV dinners? I suck them frozen." (Woody Allen)

Overheard in the supermarket today

Setting: SUPER Stop & Shop in Franklin Township in NJ, two moms pushing a shopping cart with a screaming and teary 2-3 year old boy in the front in one of those plastic car things attached to the shopping cart. The moms are oblivious to the screams, just chatting away.
One says to the other:
- I spend most money on veggie burgers, it's the only thing he eats!

That made me start thinking and my conclusions are:
1. If all I got to eat was veggie burgers I would cry too.
2. If veggie burgers, about $1 each, is the most expensive my mom was buying for me, what else is she serving? Rice porridge and peanut butter.
3. This is really an example of how stupid parents are in this country. Serve the kid some other food for a change. No kid will starve, eventually they will try different things on their plates if the parents don't give them the same thing over and over and over again. Give the kid a carrot. And a real burger (and read this article from Gourmet.com).

Spring is Here?

2 bright spots of color today

Jelly beans in a....well, they are in a Cardboard Box!

The croci are in the ground

Recently seen on the internet..

Obama's speech yesterday made me cry, and I don't cry easily these days... This is a man I want as president! Millions of people have watched the youtube video, or you can read it here. I have never ever heard any Swedish politician be so smart, humble, honest, and right about what he or she was talking about. I am now officially an Obama-fan. And maybe I even get to vote!

If you wondered how to cook a varmint (pest animal), real instructions are here. Good luck with that beaver.

And let sleeping dogs lie, even in Ecuador.
(Photo by LS in Otavalo, note the tiles on the sidewalk - fancy!)

Just keep packing, just keep packing or "living with boxes"

Now it has started, the move to the new house is close and I´m packing our stuff in boxes. Small like shoes boxes, a little larger ones (wine boxes) and of course banana boxes from our food store. And then we have the foldable move boxes as well. So I suppose we have a lot of stuff, since we have all these boxes. It´s amazing how much a cupboard can hold really.

We´re not moving for another 3 weeks but our plan is to get the new house in shape the last week so the packing has to be finished before Valentines day.

Things that are hard to part from emerges from the store areas every move, sometimes in the same box, unopened, as in last move. Like the box with my old schoolbooks from my first years. I have rescued my essays but the rest will go for recycling. My hardearned notes from the university will probably go the same way. Parting from university notes is a bit like throwing away what you know. Actually most of it was knowledge held in my mind only for a short while. Who needs to know Boyle´s constant by heart when you easily can find it in a book?
Other things that is equally hard to part from, but for other reasons, is my partners hideous things from his childhood home, like the artwork on a base of brown with crosstiches and a motif of a swedish cabin. I, of course, have no such hideous thing that I cling on to, at least thats my opinion. My nice sailing boat grandfather gave me, a little ruff in the making for example. It´s dear to me and have not been in a box. But some comments have made me realize there might be more beatiful boats, like the ones Olle builds. If I ever get a boat from Olle, I will have it on display forever. I would like to have a model of Bris, our childhood boat. But I have no skill in making boats. I like to use them.

What we need and what we keep are so far between, I don´t need even half of it, but I like having it. Like my glass insulator from an american telegraph post or my stones from the icelandic lava field. I like se them as "memory markers", they quickly moves my mind to other places I´ve seen. My home becomes the world, in a way.

Another funny thing among things I keep is 200 hundred cassette tapes with music. I have started to recollect some of the music, but it´s hard to find. Some of them are from my childhood really, I still have my original copy of ABBAs "Super Trooper". My first ever band I have lost, it was a Boney M record. What was your first music, apart from children songs?
Of course some of the music is not so good, and some is still holding, and is much better than music made today. I beleive this could be a topic, "Music was better before", I´m sure PP agrees but I´m not sure about OK.

Well, I better get on with the packing.

/EH

Where is that hex wrench?

Do they flat pack the guests?

The real cardboard box story

Leaping Volvo

Missing words

The newspaper Svenska Dagbladet has a weekly updated column of "Lexikala luckor", missing words in the swedish language. A favorite:
Blygskryt [substantiv], att genom att framhålla sina enkla vanor, sin fantasilöshet, dåliga smak och sitt bristande kulturintresse få någon annan att känna sig som en fåfäng elitist eller snobb.

Modest bragging: Through the means of accentuating one's simple habits, lack of imagination, bad taste and lack of cultural interest make someone feel like he/she is a self-conceited elitist or snob.

One word: Luxury! ;)
The translation can probably be improved, english is not my "starkspråk" (strongest language, as in ability that is)...

Which words do you miss, swedish or english, besides the obvious "lagom"?

/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: Paul Giger - Chartres)

Demise of an endurance hero. (Not really)

Today I found that one of the two Macintosh LC 475's that sits in the closet serving as web- and mailservers had crashed. But when I restarted it I was welcomed with this:

"The horror, the horror" as Marlon Brando muttered in Coppola's "Apocalypse now".

So, what to do? Go up in the attic and get my third LC 475, move the hard disk from the dead mac to that one, plug in the cables and start it, of course! :) Up and running again in just a few minutes, with no need to use a screwdriver since both the case and the disk just snaps in place. After a little troubleshooting the problem with the replaced computer was isolated to the memory. So, open case, replace memory, close case, start it up: It lives!

"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated!"

- Mark Twain

I am so impressed by these macs, especially when you keep in mind that they are 14 years old and have been running non-stop the last 6 years. In addition, LC stands for Low Cost, being the first macs to be sold for the low price (at that time, 1993) of less than a thousand dollars. And the software is stable too, I can't even remember when I last restarted the mailserver, it is a couple of years ago now. The webserver software is a beta though, so it has to be restarted once or twice a year...

The headline of this post should perhaps have been "Good stuff that works, part II" instead.

/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: Dutch commentary of the tour the France)

Ps. I'm labeling this post with "cardboard box" since I was both lucky and the form factor of these macs often is referred to as "pizza box". :)

Snapshot: One year ago today

"Andra bullar i Hornstull"

No, it's not about the bull runnings in Pamplona. Remember, this is Sweden... Translates into
"Bun party!".

/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: H.U.V.A Network - Rain Geometries)