Monthly Archives: December 2009

A notice.

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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Hello all! Have not been blogging much with Cristmas and all being upon us, submerging us, swollowinging us whole (then spitting us out, burping happily). Also, I’m on vacation. Camilla and I are (as you, my avid fans know) in the deep forrests of Högfors. It’s been snowing like hell here (as it has in most of Sweden). So, lard ass, why can’t you blog onyour vacation? This Höfors, does it lie in the 1950′s? No. I have not got my computer with me and Camillas dad’s computer is on the fritz. (Now blogging frommy phone, therefore all the spelling errors, in coherance and other gramatical strangeness.)
Well, just wanted you all to know that all’s well!

Who wouldn’t be surprised year after year?

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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Last exam of this year done! Still have one to finish off this semester, which oddly enough runs until the 15:th of january. But still, last exam of the year is done! But, no rest for the wicked, tomorrow Camilla, The Boo, Loads of packing, ridiculous amount of Christmas gifts and I take the train to Kopparberg, via Örebro, and then car the last bit to Högfors. After that it is officially Christmas break! Let’s just hope that the Christmas break comes as soon as it can, that is; let’s hope the train gets there on time. Not something they, the train company, do a whole lot when snow has fallen and winter has set in. I mean come on! After all, we do only live in a northern country, it’s not like it’s the north (or south) pole. Who wouldn’t be surprised year after year after year…
(Just because I’ve written this I’ll bet you things will get fucked up…)

I also have some fun music news. We’ve finally, well almost, set some dates on which we will continue the recording of the next album. (I don’t know if I’ve written this but) I have a title; the record has a name. For now, however, it is, well… not a secret but information only known to a chosen few. (Who these few are I do not know but I imagine I’ve told someone.)

That’s it. Tomorrow I guess there’ll be only Twitter, so follow me for your daily fix.

Shining flash-lights and ratteling keys.

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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I was so tired before. I felt like I was on a boat. (Which makes my mind wonder off… here [Spotify link], ahh… boat.) Like the ground under me was swayning. Like I was drunk, about to fall over.

Still feel a bit like that actually.

I’ve been working all weekend you see, and today I had a lecture really early. As for the work thing, it’s over now (well, maybe not forever… but one can hope).

The shift I did on Sunday was my last, ever! I turned in my ID’s, my clothes/uniform and said ‘Hej Då!’. Just like to take a moment here to say, to everyone I have worked with (protected and served with, as my friend Onemountain would say) over the past 10 years (well, most of you anyway), it has been a pleasure! I thank you for the experience! We’ll meet down the line, who knows, maybe in an empty office space somewhere, shining flash-lights and rattling keys. Securing the place so to speak. For now, however, I am done with it.

So for the last time, I walk towards the door of the gate, having changed from my uniform into regular clothes, tired as hell, and perhaps a little mad at some nonfunctioning thing or service, but still with a smile on my face, waving to the two, or three, guys just beginning their shifts, saying ‘Hej Då! Ha de’ gôtt!’.

I hate fixed times… when they’re early.

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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Today I had to get up early.
Tomorrow I have to get up early, really early.
The day after tomorrow I have to get up very early.
On Monday I will have to get up early.
And as if that was not enough:
On Tuesday I have to get up early.

I hate getting up early.

So, why, oh why, do I do this to myself? Well, it’s really beyond my control. I have to get to lectures, get to work and do exams (for school) all at fixed times. (And with ‘beyond my control’ I mean: if I were to change events so as I did not have to get up early the consequences would be too great for me not to care about them, in a sense: bigger then the getting up early. So what I really ought to hate is the consequences, that are too great for me not to care about them, of not getting up early when one ‘has to’. But, I’ll look past that little snag since it’s just pushing the hate one step away… and that could possibly be done in an, almost, infinite regress… I hate, almost, infinite regresses.)

I hate fixed times… when they’re early.

If I did not live here, I would never come here.

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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Ok.
It’s official.
Camilla, The Boo and I have to move.

I have for a while now felt that I am done with this place, with this island, with this Gigantic Rock. This because of several reasons. The main one being; if I did not live here, I would never ever go here; come here. Today, an event; yet another robbery, tipped the scale.

Now, it’s not the robberies, or the crime, or anything like that, that in itself makes me want to move. It’s not a thought like: This has become such a bad neighborhood. Because it hasn’t. It’s a really quiet neighborhood, with loads of senior citizens and with kind of  a small town feel to it (in the sense that everyone knows everyone). Still, like above, this latest robbery tipped the scale.

I do not want to live here anymore.

(So what was this robbery? Well it was our local grocery store that got robbed for the 4:th time in 18 months. Three individuals with knife/or knifes entered the store just before 2000h. Just minutes after I had left! I was there shopping for milk and what not… There was another customer in the store when I left, it’s a pretty small store so one notices people, he bought milk too (red), maybe he was a witness? The robbers got the days registered money, wich if I am informed correctly is only about half the days registered money since the other half is taken away mid-day. Also the ambulance came and picked up a guy with a cracked elbow; maybe the ‘witness’ maybe the owner, not a robber. The police picked up a suspect around 2100h.)

My life has been fairly uneventful.

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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Perhaps a little blog post is in order. It’s been long overdue I know. My life has been fairly uneventful. Not that anything hasn’t happened. Just that all that happens is right along the path of even steven. Nothing to get me too down or up and over. (And for those of you that want to follow me on this rather straight but not very narrow road there is always my twitter feed.) Well… that isn’t entirely true. There was that small matter of Arsenal winning over Liverpool. Two day euphoria, is probably the best way to describe the feeling that followed.

Nothing new on the study front.
Nothing new on the music front.
Nothing new on the weather front… you get the deal.

Seems like all I do is wait for Christmas break. Or perhaps the day after Christmas break begins. Or perhaps on the night, the day after christmas break begins. Why? Well, then Camilla, The Boo, and I will be in Högfors, after a train ride which I am not looking forward to. Two weeks of relaxing in the woods.

One thing I have done is the annual visit to the local amusement park (Liseberg) and it’s Christmas market.

Sorry the pictures aren’t better but there you go.
It was a rather pleasant experience. In spite of the snowing (and the snow then turning into slosh on the ground as it does here in the re-re-named city of Gothenburg… they tried to let the name City of Göteborg fly for a while but no more… at least not in English). Friends from up north were visiting. Always a pleasure.

Glad Searle can’t read Swedish…

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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It’s been a busy day in my mind. A busy and frustrating day.
I have been trying to figure out if Searles reasoning, through his thought experiment The Chinese Room leads to the question if we (in comparison to machines) at all, can understand. Understand, as one of many cognitive states. And also if his reasoning leads to some sort of Substance Dualism. (A position Searle himself would not like to be found in).

Naturally I had no answers. No. Nothing. Really frustrating. I sat, hovering over the computer, thinking and thinking. Trying ideas, scrapping ideas, trying new ones. (Scrapping them aswell.)

In the end. I sent in an answer. Sure Searle would eat me up if he could read it.
Fortunately for me he can’t. It’s in Swedish.

Oh. My. FFS.

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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I thought that I could write a blog post.
I thought that post would be interesting, funny, thought-provocative.
But I can’t.
And it won’t.

I am so full right now. I have been at a Christmas-table. Which is Swedish (translated to English) for all you can eat buffet of Christmas-food and sweets. Since I’m vegetarian I did not get to eat a lot of the buffet. I, however, made up for that on the dessert and cheese tables. Oh. My. FFS.

The end of… something.

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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Yes. Today it is the end of something. Not the end of an era, but the end of something.

In mid 2005 I started working on, what later was to become, my debut album; ‘The Anger’. I have since worked on and with it. It stops here. I have now packed and shipped the CD’s; the hand-made copies of ‘The Anger’ which were the prices of a competition held over at itsatrap.com. That was the last of it.

It’s been a slow ride full of chance. I’m here now. Looking to go elsewhere.

Thanks and come on!

Solving the Christmasy feeling mystery.

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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1. I do not feel that Christmasy feeling (yet, and even though it is December 7 and ‘all the signs’ are there).
2. I have bought (almost) all Christmas-presents that I set out to buy.

Are the two facts above contradictory? In one way I see how they can be: Why would I buy Christmas-presents if I do not feel that Christmasy feeling? What has brought this shopping spree on? Still, I think that another explanation is much more plausible.

I think that the answer to the lack of feeling in 1. lies in 2.
I think that not having identified the feeling gotten by not accomplishing 2. (until December 23, or 24, depending on part of the world) as the missing feeling in 1. has led to 1.

My hypothesis, therefore, is such: The Christmasy feeling (for an adult) is the same feeling as that of the urgency and anxiety  that one feels when one has not yet shopped for Christmas-presents. (This also explaining why the feeling, the urgency and anxiety, grows day by day until December 24, or 25, depending on part of the world, only to die out in satisfaction; if shopping was compleated, or guilt; if not, the morning after December 24, or 25.)

Conclusion:
If you are an adult and want to have that Christmasy feeling, do not shop for Christmas-presents untill the very last day. But on the other hand, why would you want to feel urgency and anxiety?

Major fog?

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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Having som serious traffic to this blog/site today. Think it’s some kind of bot. Still, nice… I guess.

Some action here in the neighbourhood today:
At around 1130h I sat and watched the TV. The men’s relay in Biathlon had just started. (Any excuse to get out of studying.) All of a sudden major fog rolled in. Major fog! And, really fast. I said to Camilla: Major fog is rolling in, come look. She did not come look. So I though; fog like this don’t come around very often. (This is not San Francisco; where they apparently have loads of fog.) So, I’d better take a picture of it. I went out on the balcony and then realized that it wasn’t fog. The smell was what gave it away. It was fire smoke. A balcony on the building next to ours was on fire. No one dies or anything but loads of smoke, a foul smell and material damage.

Is this the nothingness that has struck me?

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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Is this the nothingness that has struck me? Is it!?
The nothingness.
What is the nothingness? Well, it’s nothing (with a bit of ness at the end).
All right then. That about sums it up.
Sums what up?
The nothingness…

Arsenal played Wednesday night. It was crap.
The high pitch noise has not disappeared. I guess I’ll have to live with it.
The contest over at itsatrap.com was a total failure. (Although Avi deserve all credit for hosting it and trying!)
Studying my ass of. Looked over my school situation for December and saw that if I want to be able to do, and pass, the next exam I’ll have (because of prior set engagements) to study my ass of when ever time allows it. Now, don’t pity me. This is school. Thing is though, the amount of studying, reading and writing that we have to do for this course is unbelievable. 11, 4000 character questions plus at least 3 other hand-ins all in six weeks. (The amount of text to read and understand to get answers of that size, that actually say something about the questions asked is ludicrous.)

Let’s hope the Arsenal game later this afternoon will cheer me up.

‘Your Feet’ want to get in touch with you.

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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Last night, the night leading up to today, I woke up at 0235h.
I guess I had to go to the bathroom, at least I did.
I had dreamed before waking, vividly, but it’s not about that dream that this post should circle. No, this post will be about the first thought and following train of thoughts (I write thoughts because I mean several, not a train like one thing but a train as wagon upon wagon hooked together) that, completely without causation (or so it would seem) popped into my head upon waking.

I also want to note that the thought, and the from it following train of thoughts, had no connection whatsoever to my vivid dream.

The first though was: Your Feet.
The second thought was: There is a magazine called Your Feet.
(By now I am sitting, half asleep on the toilet.)
Third thought: There is a magazine called  Your Feet and they want to get in touch with its readers, maybe for a survey of sorts.
Fourth thought: The ad would say; ‘Your Feet want to get in touch with you’.
Fifth thought: (For some reason) The magazine wants to get in touch with people in wheel chairs.
Sixth thought: Why? I really do not know. Maybe it’s because people in wheel chairs have special shoe- and/or foot-care needs.
Seventh thought: What if some of the people in wheel chairs are paralysed, say from the waist down.
Last thought: What a cruel ad headline to have if your ad is aimed at people in wheel chairs paralyzed from the waist down: Your Feet wants to get in touch with you.

By this time I was done in the bathroom heading back to bed. The only thing on my mind now was how strangely un-funny I thought the whole thing was.

Recalling this in the morning was not un-funny. I laughed my ass of… inwards.