After a couple of weeks being stressed to pieces, it has been nice to actually have had a weekend that allowed me to get my stress levels back to normal. (I.e. not gone, just less extreme. That's me.)

Anyway, some of the random stuff I've been able to notice during my moments of trying to calm down:

V for Vendetta turned out to be a much better movie than I had expected.

Quantum of Solace turned out to be just as I expected. That is, a somewhat decent action movie which gets a lower rating in my mind than it should have got had they not called it a Bond movie. Because there isn't really much Bond left in it I fear, so why insist on calling it that?

Bleach - yes, we're in manga territory now - and more recently the probably less known Skip Beat! apparently have started being published in Swedish translation now, something I've totally missed. As late as a month or so ago I concluded that the local manga wave seemed to have slowed down to a lull after a brief overview of the bookstores. Guess that's what happens when you're more geared toward the English language market than the Swedish one. What's more interesting than the actual title - since I had a look at Bleach years ago but didn't found it interesting enough back then, and now 33+ volumes of a shonen series feel too much to go for - is the fact that it seems we actually have started to get a wider group of translators here. That's nice. Maybe. Because I haven't actually read their translations, so I shouldn't say too much.

Oh, and I have discovered that when it comes to doing nature science computer models, I suck at understanding the math formulas used, but I am somewhat better (not exactly good though, "better" is a relative thing) at understanding it when swapping to the computer syntax version of the models. Which - unfortunately - is the exact opposite of what the instructions assume that you should do.

Because dzioo had it, and it was too tempting not to bite. I still can't make up my mind about how the sometimes somewhat extensive lack of knowledge from my side should be interpreted. Good or a bad thing? (It could, of course, also be seen as lucky (for me) that the selection of titles here seem to be somewhat odd...)

And to improve my standing a little at least, I let the Escaflowne one stay on too. It was after all there when I first started to write my answers on the version nicked from Dzioo ;P

( Looong anime/manga meme follows here )

Spot on...

I still say that Sinfest remains my absolute favourite among web comics. Or among strip comics in general, regardless of media.

Watched a part of SVT's "One night for anime" broadcast while breakfasting (because I for some odd reason prefer to sleep during nights, so yesterday I gave up after having rewatched the latter half of Spirited Away and left the rest for the video recorder). Anyway, the choice of SVT to choose to show a Canadian mini-documentary on anime's growth in the world felt in my eyes very much a documentary on anime fandom in North America, and I don't know how much it has to do with the Swedish version of the fandom. Especially not since I'm not very familiar with it's local versions. All I can say is that for a boy who once grew up on Super Channel/Sky Channel/various random European TV-channels and then rediscovered it by German TV, I have trouble identifying with the American anime history. Just like I have a very hard time identifying with the American view of comics history. In some instances I can feel I'm very much an European. (If isolated Scandinavians can be considered Europeans, that is.) I also, as usual, feel I'm a very bad, laid-back fan in this area just as in everyone else. I'm just not cut out to be really obsessing over things I fear. Not that I know if that's really a bad thing. Lots of interests, bad at obsessing and being a total nerd. That's me. (My old Swedish teacher preferred the label "renaissance man" for that. And I think she had a good idea there.) Without going into the finer points of semantics, I feel - rightly or wrongly - comfortable with the geek title now and then though.

I don't know if I have said it before, but Simon Lundström - who is for Swedish manga and anime fandom what Stefan Diös is for the Disney duck and mouse fandom - is in my opinion very good in his role as anime ambassador. It's unfortunate that I never can get really comfortable with his manga translations, even if some comes off better than others. Not knowing Japanese for real I have no possible way to judge them in that aspect, so it's more of a choice of word things that bothers me every now and then. Maybe it's just my classical upbringing on Diös, Emond, Janzon et al translations that shines through.

So BonnierCarlsen is apparently about to start publish Fullmetal Alchemist in Swedish. And translated by the usual, it seems. If I hadn't already been trying to emigrate for other reasons for longer than I want to remember by now, this would be one very good reason too. Could you please stop raping the Japanese comics I read, please?

Yes, I know, I sound horrible elitist now. But then I am elitist. (And besides, I'm not sure if this statement is proof of me being a comics elitist or a Swedish language elitist. Probably both.)

It's interesting that while many - in other words five, since that's all there are in the two towns I call home - bookstores nowadays have a pretty good assortment of Japanese comics in the Swedish language, there's always one title that is missing. And since that title is "Gravitation", it sometimes makes me want to know if there's a reason for it being that particular title. Much in the same line that Carlsen comics, who usually publish the same titles in Denmark and Sweden, for some reason chose to only sell "Manga Love Story" in Denmark. Yeah, I picked up the first volume when in Helsingör in June. Not that I really can say I'm in a huge need of the informative help it offers in that particular field it covers. But it's an... interestingly different manga for these parts of the world for sure, and I would have wanted it to be sold here, just for seeing the reactions. Yes, I'm evil, I know.

(This post was from the beginning intended to be about something else, which included words like "job application", "rejection", and such, but seeing I have already written and deleted whiny posts several times lately, I think I'm better off this way. Or at least the few who reads this will be.)

Mom's grandchildren on visit, which means water melon two days in a row. Yummy!

Have spent half the day trying to sort some of the junk that hides in my wardrobe here. As usual it ended up as a shoveling-things-around-a-little session. Only good thing about it is that finally made up my mind and I will now try to sell some of the old comic books, old magazines, computer games and a ZIP-drive that's lying around and only taking up space. But it's probably just a lot of work for very little money, if any. Still, only throwing things away hurts my very economical sense. My clothes - yes, my wardrobe actually houses some of them too, believe it or not - are another problem. One that I think I'll try to ignore for the time being.

Thanks to Danish and German Carlsen comics (unlike their Swedish namesake they are actually still publishing good, classic stuff) I have finally been able to indulge in some Yoko Tsuno binge reading. Now all I lack for my collection to be complete is five albums, which are going to be hard to get, I fear. Unless I choose the somewhat desperate way of making my tri-lingual collection quad-lingual by getting them in their original French. Getting them in Danish or German as used books will probably be hard though. Not to mention expensive. So I guess I'll have to be happy that I at least caught some of the albums before they get sold-out.

On photo art
Great, when I for once run into a non-boring photo opportunity, I haven't got a camera with me. Oh well, not that the fox in question would have been caught in pixels anyway. Not with the speed he zipped off through the forest when he spotted me. But I still had wanted to try.

On anime
You know, it's hard taking the rabiate "I'm the total expert on this anime" people seriously when they seemingly don't even know the standard spelling for names and such. Please use either the exact kana transcription or the official latin spelling, no home-made variants inbetween if you want to be seen as anything like an "expert".

On "manga"
And I still don't know if I should laugh or cry when I see things like this.
( Piccies )

I don't know if I can blame it on me being tired and run-down from my current cold, but yesterday I suddenly found myself having a craving for reading new Yoko Tsuno albums. The slight problem? That particular comic hasn't been published in Sweden since 1984. It is however published in Denmark (where I read about the recent album some weeks ago; that's probably why my tired brain dug up the idea now when my mind is in a vulnerable state) by Carlsen comics (while the Swedish division of the same company only publishes manga and crappy pseudo-manga, because, you know - other comics are so unfashionable - with the exception of Tintin, because that one sells itself without any effort from the publisher's side).

Anyway, after a visit to Carlsen comics' Danish website I now wish I lived in Denmark. They have Bone, they have Yoko Tsuno, they have lots of other titles I've barely heard of. And they have a sale on the newer albums of both the above mentioned titles. 19,95 DKK for a Bone album! The bad thing? For non-Danes there's a small administrative fee of 130 DKK! Bye, bye, sweet dreams of cheap comics.

The end of the story this far? Some changes in the order I was about to make at amazon.de anyway (I have after all a 5 EUR rebate to use before the end of the year, my manga in German to-buy-list wasn't all that long, and Yoko Tsuno albums are published in German too) and a mental note to try to find a Danish webstore who have the same sale as the publisher, but likes its potential customers a little more.

There will be a new Asterix album out 14 October! Sure, the latest ones haven't been as good as the old, classic ones, but it's still Asterix. Which means I will buy it no matter what! And I really like the idea that it will be published simultaneously in many languages. That's an example more publishers should follow.

*sighs* I know there are things I ought to do, but I don't wanna do them. I'm tired of shuffling around old web pages and fighting with servers thinking differently than I do, and I'm tired of planning the real work. That's why I've been wasting my time reading friends' friendslist and been generally pathetic instead.

And I finally got around doing that comment statistics thing. Which more than anything else shows my own inability to know when to stop talking ^^; but it always feels so rude not acknowledging that I have read what the other person wrote by writing an answer...
( See my comment statistics )