I had no idea there existed a company - probably Spanish - that makes fridges and such things under the label Smeg. Something that amuses the Red Dwarf fanboy in me. (Yes, I'm tired and easily amused.)

Another tough week ended and I'm trying my best to get some rest wedged in between parents and nephew, but without much success. I still feel, well, edgy. Not to mention out of motivation, but that part I simply blame on it being November. Oh well, finally I at least got around to do some of the long overdue cleaning done.

And on a somewhat mood-related sidenote, it seems I'm running out of chocolate and unwatched Fullmetal Alchemist episodes. The latter even though I have been mixing in a heavy dose of Azumanga Daioh in my watching habits lately.

Since my sister, my cousin, my mom and dzioo (a.k.a. four-fifths of the people in this world that I actually listen to for advice) all seemed to be in favour of me doing it, I braved the first snowfall of the year and got the A(H1N1) flu shot yesterday; and am now waiting to be ill. This far, all I have got is an aching left arm like if I had been using it too much, so I'm still waiting for more. Knowing the exact time of infection and being able to actually time the incubation period is kind of odd. I have never taken a flu shot before, so I don't really know how my immunological system will react. But if its usual reaction to wild viri is something to judge by, it should react. Guess it is just confused right now.

(The vaccine bottle seems to label the flu strain as "California". I wonder if that means that the A(H1N1) should really be the "California flu" in layman's language if we were going by traditional labelling, and if California hadn't had better lobbyists than Hongkong did in the 1960s.)

( November weather )

My usual slice of life fluff fanficlet writing. I admit that there's no really important reason why this is a Gundam SEED one, other than that my mind at an early stage decided that it should be, and I don't argue against my mind on that point.

( Reluctance (Gundam SEED, Asucaga, rated 15 (R) maybe for topic, but 12 (PG-13) is more likely considering it's all pointless fluffyness) )

To be honest, I whine too much.

With the exception of two things, I really don't have much to complain about. I have always had good relations to my parents, my sister and her family; I have a couple of wonderful friends who mean a lot to me - even if they aren't close enough to be around in real life, but maybe it is the fact that they exist that is important; And I have a decent place to live and for the time being still at least some kind of financial security. And for the rest I still have my dreams - not even totally impossible ones, even if they are still dreams - and one day they may yet come true. I'm stubborn after all. ^^

(This whole post is also probably a very good example why I shouldn't write things like this when it's late and I'm tired... Oh, well. I can always lock it later.)

(Also note that I only say that I probably whine too much, not that I will stop doing it...)

So tired. It feels like I've been stuck in a constant stress mood for at least the last two weeks - probably more -, with only the occasional hour or so every now and then as a relief and much needed breathing space. And even with all that stress, I still have a terrible time getting things done even close to as good as I want to. Not that I'm the slightest bit surprised, really. Meh, I still hate Swedish autumns in general, and this one in particular.

While looking for other photos on my camera, I found some three weeks old photos from back when I was bored and had two hours of waiting to kill. So here is a random boring tour around Norrköping, one of the twin cities I call home towns, and this one is my childhood one to boot.

( Beware! Boring city photos under the cut. And lots of 'em. )

*Reading Danish/south Swedish news.*

The biggest international airport in Scandinavia closed for traffic, rail and road traffic between Copenhagen and Malmö stopped between 7.30-8.30 and 11.30-12.30, mail in Copenhagen will be delayed and "big parts of Copenhagen will be subjected to shorter and longer closures of traffic". And the reason? The US president is in town on a blitz visit to promote Chicago's bid for the Olympic Games. Such an important mission! I'm sure the job commuters, air travellers, and common danes trying to get to work are totally overjoyed...

Sometimes you really can't help but wonder if maybe the US president ought to follow the example of the British queen and never go abroad except for official state visits.

And that's even without including how good it looks from a climate responsibility viewpoint to take a Boeing 747 on a transatlantic trip for some four hours of Olympic lobbying.

Okay, so Minami Takayama is the seiyuu for both Nabiki Tendo, Conan, Dilandau and now latest FmA's Envy. And I didn't notice that connection between the two first characters and the two later ones until now!

The thing here is that she's been a favourite singer - and seiyuu - of mine for many years, and even so I failed to react even when more knowledgeable people (dzioo) actively pointed out to me that she was to do Envy in FmA:B and that she was doing Dilandau in Escaflowne. I really fail at my music/seiyuu recognition skills and knowledge!

*reads incoming mail* Wait... I am one of two students who got an A grade on a course that involved statistics?! (OK, so not all that advanced statistics, but still. It's statistics.) And in cooperation with other research methods like questionnaires (icky) and interviews (double-icky) to boot. And with me being chided for being "too quiet" on at least one seminar. Not to mention the course in question was weird in that it was split in two parts by a summer holiday, which meant that you had all time in the world to actually forget what it was about. Oh, and I kind of haven't handed in the extra short report I had to write for being too quiet on said seminar yet. Apparently that isn't deemed too important for deciding my grade, then.

OK, so I should have been doing a lot of stuff that needed to be done this weekend (including some that I didn't even remember I needed to do), but after trying hard without success, I sort of gave up and decided to finally complete and put up the half-a-year old redesign of my fic archive instead. Good way of trying to avoid thinking I guess. But maybe not the best way to spend my time. Especially not since it's still not up to date even though I have written way too little lately.