I came home from work to find a slip of paper from a delivery firm who tried to deliver the VIE (vols. 1 - 22) today! I guess I'll stay home tomorrow (good thing I brought a lot of work home with me — almost prophetic one might say.)

This is incredibly cool. I may try to explain later just how cool it is, and why. But it is, it is wonderful, I'm too excited to sleep!

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 21:58 0 comments

 
It's snowing. I ask you! It's been 10-12° C for almost a week — I've been walking around barefoot outside! And now it's snowing. Gaaah.

We had a bunch of people over yesterday: Annika, Monika & Jimpa, Ulrika and Pyrola with their respective families, Stina & Anders, Sten, Marie, Ylva and Micke (and I'm almost certain I'm forgetting somebody...) It was fun; we ate, babbled and consumed various amber-coloured liquids with and without ginger and pepper. Late in the evening, we played a game of Deadwood. And I got a plush Cthulhu!

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 12:19 0 comments

 
Not mentioning the war doesn't make it go away. It doesn't make any difference if I do mention it, either, but this is my blog and I say whatever I like here. And now I want to say that I'm scared.

This is not a game, it is not a strategy simulation. It's for real, and it terrifies me.

There have been wars going on somewhere in the world since I was born, of course. Not to mention for a few thousand years before that. There were two world wars during my grandparents' life time, and the world is still here. But of course the scale is grander, somehow, when the US is one of the parts involved — I am comparing this to ongoing wars earlier in my own lifetime, now — they have the power to involve the whole world in one way or another. That's what being a superpower means. Saddam Hussein is a despicable dictator, and removing him is in itself a good idea, but that's not the only thing this is about. There are squabblings over whether Iraq should be allowed to have a GSM network after the war, for instance, or whether this would be a waste of US tax money. That it would be stupid not to use GSM since that's what 70% of all mobile phones in the world use (outside the black hole, mobile phone-wise, that is the US) is nuncupatory — this is about American pride. And national pride and patriotism shouldn't be allowed to enter decisions about world peace.

Yes, I am saying self-evident things. This is my blog, not a political commentary for the Guardian, I don't have to be erudite and present new angles.

I realised a few days ago that I would like the US to win the war. Because what we want — what I want, what most people want I believe — is to minimise the human suffering, and the only way to do that is for the war to end. And there's no way Bush and Blair will remove their forces anytime soon unless they win the war. So never mind my own feelings, a large number of people's feelings, about Bush — let him win the war and be smug about it as long as it ends the bombing of Baghdad. Iraq wouldn't be left to its own devices the way Afghanistan was, anyway.

But things have escalated since I thought that, the other day. Now Syria and imams in Baghdad are calling for a holy war against the US. This is the stuff nightmares are built of. What kind of world will Miranda and Veronica grow up to inherit? What about my friends in the US and Britain — will they have to live under the threat of terrorism, now? Oh, I know the threat has been there in Britain, but those Arab states that might elect to follow an appeal for a holy war — far from all of them, I know, and Allah help those who don't want to join — have rather more resources than the IRA.

Meanwhile, the US Congress passes a resolution "calling for a national day of humility, prayer and fasting in a time of war and terrorism". Not for peace or anything, but for strength to stand against the country's enemies (according to CNN.)

So this war scares me. I can't see a solution. I can't not think there will be one, somehow. But now I'm just frightened.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 16:09 0 comments

 
Today, Cassandra has celebrated being a cat by stalking last year's dry leaves on the terrace, rolling around on the ground getting her black coat all dusty, jumping after reflections of the sun and sleeping on the warm wood of the terrace floor. I have celebrated being a human by sitting in the sun reading about pragmatics and multidimensionality, and occasionally creating sun reflections with my wristwatch for Cassandra to jump after.

The feeling when the sun is suddenly warming you up again is indescribable. It's not that we go around shivering with cold all winter, but actually feeling warm from standing in the sun is something we discover anew every year. I am not yet freckled, but at this rate I may soon be.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 17:53 0 comments

 
So that was fun. A lot of fun, actually: not only did I spend a thoroughly pleasant evening in good company, I also got faces to some of my most frequented blogs (once again, I haven't updated my "Favourite Blogs" for a long time because Blogger refuses to update my template. More on that later.)

I forgot to bring my camera, but no matter — there were seven other cameras or so at work (including two mobile phones — one of which was used both to take a picture and then blog it. We were a gaggle of geeks!) And of course people identified each other by blog rather than by name; "Bengt Karlsson, I Dåligt Sällskap — ja, inte ni alltså!"

I wish I could have joined people for beer after the sushi, but even though I could have caught a later train, I would still only have been able to stay for an hour or so, if that. But I would have liked to be able to chat more with people, in particular those who sat at the other end of the dinner table. So, maybe do this again?

Meanwhile, Steffanie — who incidentally became a celebrity before our very eyes: Elin kept getting phone calls reporting sightings of Steffanie on regional and national television during the evening — managed to convince me that Movable Type is possible to set up and maintain, so I am now leaning in that direction. But there is a rebellious spirit in me whispering "Don't streamline!"; many (though not all) MT weblogs look rather alike, and have the same functions, and I am pretty fond of diversification... I don't want to have to give each posting a heading, for instance, and I don't really want to classify my postings. But we'll see, I don't know which of these functions, if any, are mandatory, and I'm sure I can make it look the way I want to with a bit of trial and error. As long as the maintenance of the thing doesn't take too much time I don't mind spending some effort setting it up. (Which is not what I said before, I know, but now I believe I could succeed in setting it up and then the work involved seems of less importance.) Above all, I want something that works!

Anyway, I digress. The blog dinner was really fun, and I hope there will be another one soon. There are pictures in Erik's, Jonas B's and Fredrik's respective blogs.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 10:31 0 comments

 
Off to Stockholm in 25 minutes. First I'm meeting Ylva for coffee, and then I'll go to the Sweblogger dinner. Wish me luck — meeting new people face-to-face is not one of my strong points, particularly not en masse. But I think it will be fun. Will report afterwards.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 15:17 0 comments

 
I'd forgotten about the existence of the Speculative Fiction Database, which once upon a time I used to visit pretty regularly. Now Patrick Nielsen Hayden mentions that it's online again after a hiatus I was unaware of; in any case it's an amazing collection of bibliographic data about sf, fantasy and horror.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 22:16 0 comments

 
Snippet of overheard conversation between two mothers, on the bus into town this morning:

"I'm glad I only have boys, it's so much less complicated. Like, if they fall down they just get up again and don't say anything more about it."
"Yes, I know; my daughter has to discuss everything all the time. Girls are like that."

At which point I took a firm mental grip on my sanity and dived vehemently into the Diana Wynne Jones book I'd brought. (It helped, too; I stopped hearing what the women were saying.) It is not my place in the world to put a stop to all kinds of stupidity; it would be a bad idea for me even to try. Because, really, what can you say? "Excuse me, but I think you would be a better mother to your sons if you stopped being so narrow-minded"? Nah.

Steven Brust put it better than I ever could (since after all he's a much better man when it comes to writing then I'll ever be) in the Jan 30 web log entry. Every word he says there is just so true. All I can add is the phrase I used to have in my .sig file (and which I made up on my ownsome self, as a matter of fact) : Flytraps are from Venus, giant killer tomatoes from Mars. Men and women come from the planet Earth.



  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 21:43 0 comments

 
Service announcement: Nat is alive and well (or at least somebody is txting my phone from her phone, calling themselves "nat"!) She's just incapable of updating the Hold-all because of Lycos unexpectedly going down for a week, for server maintenance.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 01:15 0 comments

 
Incidentally, there are more Jumble Jitters puzzles now than last time I mentioned them; I hope new ones will keep appearing. Not too often, though; I can't spend all my time hunting for words.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 21:54 0 comments

 
It's Jonas' fault. I would have been home already if he hadn't posted the link to Chasm. But I was strong — I just closed the window. And am going home now. To see if I can solve Chasm from there.

[Edited: Oops, sorry. The link works now.]

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 18:40 0 comments

 
My autobiography will begin with the words On my 30th birthday, war broke out.

But it's too easy to curse the darkness; I have a job to do, and windows to clean and my family is coming over tonight and that will be good. I don't think I'll mention the war for a bit.

Except to share a number of links. Where is Raed? is a blog kept by an Iraqi citizen giving an account of what is going on in Baghdad. Eschaton is another daily journal that makes me think better of Americans. (Yes, I have a tendency to tar Americans with their president's brush — I am trying actively not to, for I know how desperately unjust that is.) All his commentators don't necessarily do the same thing for me, though. And Michael Swanwick has published a statement signed by a growing number of sf and fantasy professionals.

(I'm afraid I can't recall where I first saw these links — I may appear poor at attributing, but the truth is I seldom link places in here immediately, and these sites as well as most others I link to are the kind that are frequently linked to from all kinds of places I frequent.)

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 12:27 0 comments

 
Job announcement or lonely hearts ad? (Link to a Swedish site, I'm afraid.)

[Edited: Darn, they discovered the typo and changed hustru ("wife") to husfru ("matron") — they have no sense of humour!]

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 22:27 0 comments

 
Now this is truly excellent. The state of New Mexico is trying to stop that infringment of human rights and liberties that's going on in the name of the Patriot Act. Speaking of which, I don't think I've linked to librarian.net's avoiding the Patriot Act since 2001 page, have I? (Well, now I have.)

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 15:56 0 comments

 
I used to look forward to this day of the year more than any other day, I think. More even than to the 20th. I suppose I liked the anticipation so much that I wished for the day when my anticipation would be the strongest.

Somehow, today doesn't feel like a day you've been anticipating, though.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 10:00 0 comments

 
I've said it before, and listed it in my "Favourite Blogs" column, too, but I must say it again: Read Teresa Nielsen Hayden's web log. It's good, and it's important, and it makes me think there is hope for America after all.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 15:46 0 comments

Pictures are clickable links, as always.

 
A very revealing on-line quiz. Don't take it unless you are willing to face some truths.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 22:19 0 comments

 
Am still on crutches, blog-wise, but wanting to do the best thing possible I'll post using Blogger until I have a viable alternative. As long as Blogger allows me to post, that is. My current theory is that I'm being limited to one posting per day, though if this one shows up that can't be true.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 15:27 0 comments

 
Downtime postings
--------------------
14/3 2003
I am blown away.

I woke up this morning resolved to solve this problem somehow; I am not going off the air, I enjoy this too much and would be too sad if I lost it. And Johan and I talked about Movable Type last night and decided that we may be able to get our combined heads around it.

So that was the situation when I got up. Then I plugged in the modem, logged in and checked my e-mail. Three offers to host Néablog on a server with MT installed, three suggestions of other alternatives and no end of general support from people I know well, people I know who they are but have never met and complete but wonderful strangers. No way I'm giving this up :-)

I have too much to do today to think about this now, but I will get back to all of you once I've thought about it. In the meantime, thank you.

Linnéa


13/3 2003
This ain't Néablog. Blogger has been more and more uncooperative this last month; a month ago special characters stopped working, three weeks ago my template wouldn't update any longer and today it's not publishing; despite claiming it has published my posts they aren't visible in the blog. And I don't have the time or mental energy to spend on this kind of frustration.

Unfortunately, it would appear that there is no longer any support for those who use the free version of Blogger. And I'm not interested in comments on the line of "You get what you pay for"; I am giving the Blogger people goodwill by using their software to publish my blog, and all I'm getting back is gastritis.

I am not going to make any decision tonight; I'm too irritated. I wish there were any other blog publishing software I could use, but there doesn't appear to be any. I don't like LiveJournal, and Movable Type requires expert knowledge I don't have. And I'm not going to pay money for Blogger Pro. One alternative could be to type in the text and code manually, but how long would I keep that up? Maybe I'll have to kill the blog, but as I say, that is not a decision to make tonight.

Linnéa
-----------------------

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 15:22 0 comments

 
Once more, with coherence:

There's going to be a world-wide anti-war vigil on Sunday. All over the world, candles will be lit at 7pm local time; MoveOn.org are the global organizers and the vigils are registered on their web site. When I wrote my previous posting, about 1350 vigils were registered; now the tally is 1891, in 81 countries. I hope there will be at least one country in each time zone — it's unlikely but possible.

I know a number of people who will participate here; not a lot but hopefully the number will grow. It would be nice if people would also sign up on the web site; it's not mandatory at all but it is a way of displaying publicly how many people will attend.

No, it's not much of an action, I suppose. I am frightened of the prospect of oncoming war and I don't want to keep quiet about it; I suspect this kind of protest is viewed as pathetic more than anything else — but as one of my colleagues said, it is something, it's a way of making our voices heard, it's a way of expressing to ourselves and each other, at least, how we feel. And that's not meaningless.

7pm in Slottsbacken. Bring a candle. And sign up if you want.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 20:19 0 comments

 
Going to do this on Sunday; it was decided not an hour ago that some people at the dept will be holding a vigil. I've registered it on the web site (not signing up as coordinator myself) and it's going to be in Slottsbacken at 7pm, on Sunday, the 16th. Bring a candle.

Looking at the web site is pretty cool; the number of vigils grows every time I reload the page. . .

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 14:52 0 comments

 
Mmmmm. . . semla. It's Tuesday.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 19:42 0 comments

 
I'm Billy the bookshelf! Yay! (IKEA furniture test in Swedish, I'm afraid.) Billy is easily the coolest piece of furniture :-)

I've rarely seen such a bad characteristic of myself, though. Fascinatingly enough, that goes for all of the results. I think IKEA should stick to making furniture, and not try to enter the psychology business. . .

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 12:37 0 comments

 
A Swedish tabloid newspaper — Expressen — conducted an experiment in practical opinion-swaying, which they published today. They wrote an article (promoting the Euro, though the purpose is beside the point) containing six intentional factual errors. Then they phoned a number of celebrities including social scientists and top politicians, purporting to call from an organization called "Ja till Euro" (which doesn't exist) and asking them to sign the article. Those who signed would receive SEK 5000, which is about EUR 540. Six of the celebrities, including one member of parliament and one high-ranking academician, swallowed hook, line and sinker, and happily agreed to sign the article and to get paid for doing it. Not one of these six discovered any of the factual errors, for instance the incorrect name of one member of government and the claim that the European Central Bank is in Bruxelles.

That a pop star and a poet don't know these things is excusable, of course; there are millions of facts floating around and if you're not affected directly you can't keep track of them all — but if you sign something you're pretty well expected to know what you're signing. None of them even checked up on the organization.

And the mere fact that celebrities of the Eurovision winner kind are perceived as experts on specialised topics like the Euro is just mind-boggling. But if they weren't, why would their names under an appeal mean anything more than the name of J Random Bystander? I believe that many people trust well-known people without thinking twice about it; faces that are exposed to the media day out and day in get a familiar quality to them, it's like a friend advising you. The people who signed this article may very well have believed sincerely in what they were signing, but who is to say that half of them didn't do it only for the money? It's food for thought, chilling thought, this.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 12:20 0 comments

 
----- Happy Birthday, my love.-----

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 09:51 0 comments

 
In other news, Stina and I are going to the Stockholm singalong Sound of Music on Wednesday. I've wanted to attend one of those for years; unfortunately I only found out about it the other day so I'm not sure I'll be able to fix a costume. Although a brown paper package tied up with strings could be doable, perhaps. We'll see; the main thing is that I get to do it! Yay for Stina who thought of me when they had an extra ticket.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 18:32 0 comments

 
One of the beautiful things with this medium is that it's easy to get to know new people; for me personally it's rather easier to get to know people like this than any other way (and it bugs me no end when adolescent psychologists (no, psychologists specialised on adolescents!) talk about the "false sense of community" but that's another bag of worm-holes.) Unfortunately, I'm much worse at keeping in touch with people, even those I really want to keep in contact with. I don't know why, but there you have it.

Fortunately, sometimes they turn up again. Hello, Sari! It's very good to hear from you :-)

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 17:54 0 comments

 
Blother, blother and yet another blother. ('s like bother but Blogger-connected.) Hans came up with the term.

The template doesn't update, so my "currently reading" list is all outdated and I can't experiment with the new shiny logo I've made for this place. And Blogger ate a long posting I made to my thesis progress journal, and I'm too tired to re-write it now. Bah.

Instead, I'll share a rule I learnt today: It's better to not start doing anything before you know what you're supposed to be doing. Miranda says so, that's why. Although she immediately conceded that this is impossible, and so the rule is extinct (her choice of words, not mine!)

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 22:19 0 comments

 
Every now and again you think you've seen it all. . .

 
Ture is an excellent photographer, and his photo pages are full of miscellaneous very good, very varied stuff. Look at this and this to see what I mean.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 14:09 0 comments

 
Quiz time! Which author is this quote about:

"When you pass from really wanting to know how things turn out, to not caring about the characters anymore, to actively hoping they all just die so the story will end...well, that's a pretty good indicator that the author has lost you and it's time to just give up find something else to read."

Here's the answer (in the name of the newsgroup).

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 12:35 0 comments

 
Bother. Yesterday, I ran into a web log I really liked and would have liked to read more of. I found it whilst looking at weblogs and web journals in the ODP, so I know it's listed there, but that ain't helping much when I can remember neither its title nor its description, or even whether it was classified as a journal or a weblog. Bother. I even wrote a commentary to a posting about turning 30, and I'm not sure I would be human if I didn't want to check if I'd got a reply!

In any case I've started listing Swedish web logs and -journals again, and find it increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the logs and the journals. Sometimes, that is — there's a bunch of very clear-cut ones too, but it seems that more and more blogs turn into an amorphous middle form — which I like as a web surfer and reader of blogs, it certainly makes for more interesting blogs, but as a cataloguer it can get frustrating. Looking at the English categories is all well and good, but they are seriously mixed up in what they list where, too. I wouldn't be surprised if there was to be a re-organisation of the web log/journal categories at some point.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 15:32 0 comments

 
Ho, hum. We're not going to Milan at the end of this month after all, so maybe I'll go to the blog dinner after all — I've been reading the blogs of some of these people for quite some time, now (mostly without remembering to add them to my Favourite Blogs list. Careless of me) so it would be nice to meet them. And it's sushi! :-)

We are, however, going to the Eastercon — yay!! We decided we couldn't afford it this year, and then we stalked around sulking until we changed our minds. By now we have hotel rooms and air tickets; we were already members of the con, so we are almost all set. It only remains to find out how to get to Hinckley once we're in the UK.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 22:14 0 comments

 
Do other people have book-dreams? Not dreams about books, or dreams about characters from particular novels, but dreams taking place inside books that don't exist in the waking world? I seem to be having those very frequently; I'll be a character in a book, or occasionally I'll be reading a book and live it at the same time; sometimes I'll know that my actions are determined by the plot, quite often I'll dream that it's a book I've read already so I know how it ends, except the ending usually changes in odd and unusual ways, in the manner of dreams.

The other week I had a rather grisly nightmare, where among other things I kept finding bodies, and I knew I was in the middle of a Stephen King novel. And almost the worst thing about the whole nightmare was that I tried and tried to turn the pages to bring me to the end of the book, and failed, in much the same way you can run and run and not get anywhere in a dream.

But usually, the book dreams are rather adventure novels than horror stories, and the plots are often quite elaborate. Just as ordinary dreams, then (though what do I really know of what other people dream?) except they are set inside a book. And I don't think that carries any deeper significance than that I have been a reading creature all my life, pretty much; as far as I can remember I've never dreamt that I've been on TV or in a movie, and I'm sure that's as common as dreaming you are inside a book. Maybe in another thirty years I'll be dreaming computer dreams.

  posted by Linnéa Anglemark at 13:33 0 comments