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.

I suppose I shouldn't be very surprised that I get unusually interesting dreams after having watched Paprika in the evening.

Actually, the dream that apparently was my main feature dream for the night was quite nice, so I'm not complaining. And I'm kind of impressed how my subconscious works - if you're my subconscious dream producer and need visuals and scenery for a distinct geographical area which you have no experience of in real life, take the geographically closest place I have been at and extrapolate from that. My mind is apparently a clever one when asleep.

As for Paprika, it was a somewhat surreal but good experience, and a good example of the kind of animated movies that only Japan can produce.

Once upon a time, back in the days when having a video recorder was a novelty for me, I taped this movie that I thought I should see some day. The movie in question was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and, well, now I've actually watched it in full. Some parts of it I glanced back when it was more fresh, but never the whole movie. What makes this somewhat spectacular even for me, is the fact that I taped it in 1988. Which means it's been on my "to watch"-list for two decades... I know, I'm hopeless. But to my defence this was extreme even for being me. Of course, being me, I know that the movie in question hadn't been in my taste at all at that age, so maybe it was some sort of unconscious self-protection involved. (Not so surprising the quality of a VHS tape kind of deteriorates over time, so I had to obtain a newer copy to actually watch it somewhat comfortably, but that's not the point here.)

As for the actual movie, it was about as bad as the impression I had got from the earlier glimpses and statements, so not having seen that one until now wasn't much of a loss in that aspect. I still much prefer the other two. Those are good, easy entertainment, and I really hope the new one will follow in the footsteps of those two.

Anyway I'm still bored, so it's quiz results time again. (Or more exactly, PC maintenance made me find some old ones lying around and since I haven't anything else to talk about I put them here). Mostly grabbed from maaya1x2 I think.

( Cut for pointlessness )

Watched Casino Royale (the new one) the other day and got positively surprised. After having read things about the movie "restarting" Bond and having a new actor, I didn't exactly have too high hopes. But, well, the movie is good. And Craig is a very nice Bond, if a somewhat different looking one. It's just that I'm not sure if it's the real Bond or not.

I still have trouble with the "young inexperienced 007" thing, but once I got over that fact, it got better. (To fit me and my ideas of it, it would have been much better if they had placed the story back in the late 1950s or so if they now absolutely had to make a beginner Bond. The basic idea being good and all.) As it is, I can always try some variant of depicting Craig-Bond in my mind as some kind of James Bond Jr., replacing the "real" one.

But as I said it was an overall pleasant experience, and to be honest it's was probably time for something refreshing. The Brosnan-Bond stories wasn't all that excitingly new, even if I still have a soft spot for Tomorrow Never Dies.

Oh, and I - naturally - found Vesper Lynd an interesting woman to my liking. But I'm sure no one is very surprised over that statement.

So Ingmar Bergman, the man who more than anyone else interpreted and showed the Swedish national character of gloomy depression for the world, is dead. Which means with little doubt that the rest of the TV summer will mean depressing movie masterpieces in reruns. I have no doubt he wasn't a great artist in his field, but, well, it's not exactly light entertainment we're talking about. I still have traumatic childhood memories of "Fanny och Alexander", even if "Det sjunde inseglet" ("The Seventh Seal") actually wasn't bad and gave me an insight in why he's considered a great director. (It's iconic after all, so I had to see it. I might have a fear of death (probably the only thing I can be said to share with the late Mr Bergman by the way), but that doesn't mean I can't like him as a character.) As for the rest of his production, I think I've given up well before the endings on the ones I've tried to watch. I'm a bad Swede, I know.