Month: October 2006

Have you ever noticed that whenever you are in a book or music store and you are looking for a certain author or artist whose name begins with a given letter that there is always some other customer who just happens to be standing in your way even if the store is completely empty and you two are the only people present?

Soon it will be November, and then what? Longer nights, colder weather, darkness taking over and whatever. Not exactly my favorite time of the year, but it is part of the natural changing seasons thing, that cycle of awareness that nature imposes on us whether we like it or not, with the good comes the other end of the story and so forth. Let's just say that we adapt or we sink underneath the quick sand of reality.

When I upgraded from Gnome 2.14 to 2.16 everything seemed to go along just fine, except for one very aggravating thing: my menus were missing.

In desperation I have been searching around forever trying to find a solution, but to no avail.

Finally this morning I figured it out, and now all my wonderful menus have magically returned, and they are beautiful.

Reinstall the gnome menus stuff and delete my user-defined config stuff just in case.

More accurately, this is what I had to do:

Lo and behold it works and I am happy again.

Oh Mom, that man he ripped out his lining
He tore out a piece of his body
To show us his "clean quilted heart"

- Suzanne Vega, Days Of Open Hand

So why is the train slowing down at this very moment and why is the surrounding terrain looking so unfamiliar all of a sudden? Within five minutes of this near stop the train is speeding along full of glee as if nothing ever happened in the first place.

Every morning when I look at myself in the mirror, I am more and more surprised how much I am starting to resemble my father. Is that me or is it my father staring back from a time past?

I never believed it would ever be possible until much to my pleasant surprise I received the following email notification from my blog server:

On Monday, October 16, 2006 at 13:09:30 (CEST)
the hit-count for Kiffin's Blog is: 100000.

Please note that this value only includes 'unique' visitors to my blog, thus not including repeat offenders he keep on coming back for more.

Not bad after all these years of blogging, I would say.

Starting today I am going on a strict diet in order to get rid of my disgusting flabby belly. When I weighed myself this morning, the scale displayed 76 kg (167 lb). My target weight after six weeks is 68 kg (150 lbs). That means I will have to lose 8 kg (17.6 lb) of ugly fat. I can't wait, but it will not be very easy.

For some time now I realized that my favorite casual brown shoes were getting old, but I did not really think very seriously about the possible consequences and what this might mean to me. That is not until I was walking downstairs at my work on the way to the coffee machine when all of a sudden all these flapping splinters of plastic yellowish material started flying off in every which way with each and every step I took.

The soles of my shoes were falling apart and disintegrating right in front of my eyes. Upon closer inspection, I saw two gaping holes on the underside of my right foot and three similar open lacerations located beneath my left foot. Help, my shoes are falling apart. Hopefully I can make it home just in time so I can toss my favorite brown shoes ever so non-chalantly in the garbage can. Sorry, but that's the way things were meant to be. Life goes on as usual. Starting tomorrow I can start thinking about new shoes.

Ever so subtly the speeding train wobbles in its tracks, as all of the passengers (whether standing or sitting) sway back and forth and from left to right and back left again, like some kind of jerking ballet in perfect harmony, barely in control yet just enough to make some sense.

This is a view of the evening sky as I slowly approach home cycling just beneath such an awesome canopy of pure beauty.

When I woke up this morning, it took me about ten seconds of drowsy after-thought and the sleepiness melting away before it finally dawned on me that forty-nine was not a prime number after all. Oh well, having an age that is only divisible by one or itself is harder to come by than most people realize, let alone even think about it once over a whole lifetime of thought. In two years it will be a different story for me, so I will just have to wait and be patient and hope for the best.

I thought that it was a young woman behind me that was giggling and squealing with laughter, but it was just the train that was swaying back and forth, thereby creating various high-pitched creaking human-like sounds.

I walked up the stairs and saw him standing there.

"Hey Lennart, what are you doing here? I thought you were living in LA."

"Yeah, well I just figured I'd drop by and check out the new room you had setup for me when I get back. Just curious is all."

When I turned around again he had disappeared and I felt bad that I hadn't talked with him a little longer.

Faint light of dawn
I'm listening to you breathing in and breathing out
Needing nothing
You're honey dipped
You are beautiful, floating clouds, soft world
I can't feel my lips.

-- Sia

I never would have expected it of myself being the way that I am. But sometimes you just have to accept things as they are and continue as if nothing ever happened in the first place. Take a step sideways that's it no matter how much time has passed since whenever.

Although it turned out to be a chaotic situation with so many trains running behind schedule, I was pleased when the train I thought was mine finally arrived and opened its doors in front of me. I jumped inside and easily found an unoccupied seat. Sure seemed more quiet than usual but no matter. What I didn't notice was how everyone got out at the next stop and I was the last one left. No matter can happen so what. So I nodded off feeling confident that I would soon reach my destination as usual. When I woke up it was a whole different story. There I was alone in an empty train carriage stopped and completely motionless in the middle of nowhere (endless meadows on both sides filled with cows and water and other rustic objects) and not a single living soul around.

This is just too weird to imagine like some kind of horror film - what next? Stuck there for thirty minutes ready to pull the emergency chord, but first I have to break the glass, not really something I want to do. Let's not panic and just see what happens. And then before I realize it after a slight shaking and steam coming out of the side, the train heads back to the previous stop. I have been saved, there is hope. Get out of the train and wait until I can retain the original direction I was meant to follow but now in a slightly different slice of time. Made it to work (slightly late), did alot, and now I am back home writing about this interesting adventure and then life goes on as if nothing ever happened.

What were the odds that that drop of water detached itself from the overhanging leaf right at the mathematically correct instant that when I cycled underneath the tree that drop of water struck me on my forehead exactly at the midpoint between my eyes?

If it had been a bullet I would have been killed instantly, but if instead it had been a speck of dust I would not have noticed it at all.

One advantage to the coming of fall and the cooler temperatures is that there are (almost) no more mosquitoes buzzing around your ear and keeping you awake half of the night.

I, I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim
Though nothing, nothing will keep us together
We can beat them, for ever and ever
Oh we can be Heroes, just for one day.

-- David Bowie, Heroes.

Here is something that you might be interested in.

In the long run it is so much easier and quicker. Check it out yourself more information about portsnap and how it might simplify things.

There she is that wonderful daughter of mine of whom I am so very proud waiting to move back into the game, eager to score and win this important game. Waiting for the right moment.