Today when I got out of the shower and was walking across the living room to get my clothes I saw a strange man standing on my balcony.
He was dressed in a blue plastic body suit, wearing a gas mask and some kind of container on his back. He was using what looked like a small circle saw to cut into the wall.
Three quick questions appeared in my head during the second I first saw him:
How did he get onto my balcony (which is a couple of floors up)
Why is he dressed like he is dealing with an Ebola infection from outer space?
What the hell is he doing to my wall?
Then I remembered. They apparently used some toxic material in the joints when building our house. Something that the housing company now has been ordered to sanitate. So the answers to my questions were:
Yesterday my old friend Dossen came to visit. After strolling through town, visiting comic book shops and having lunch, we later went to Glen Miller Café together with M.
The food was great (as always), the music (Sara Hedman Kvartett) was classy and temperature was high. We all had a good time, and later went back to my place and was joined by Fredde.
The photos below are from both mine and Dossens cameras (his is way better), and I just had to do a photoshop version of something I have wanted to to for years: put a lightsaber in the hand Karl XIV Johan’s statue at Slussen, Stockholm.
Dossen at Taco Bar
Karl XIV Johan with a lightsaber
Darth Frank
Sara Hedman Kvartett
Svante Söderkvist on contrabass, Sara Hedman on vocals
Last week me and M were in Strängnäs, just checking out the place. Later the first day we met up with Jens and Linda, who had taken their boat there the same day.
Good times!
Hotell Rogge, where we stayed
Strängnäs harbor
Birds by the water
Roses in Strängnäs
View from Strängnäs windmill
The windmill of Strängnäs
Strängnäs cathedral
Rune stones in the foundation is da shit!
Nice spelling on the cathedral door
The princess Isabella
A king’s armor
Strängnäs cathedral has a huge organ
Lots of details
The grave of Sten Sture the elder
I want my tombstone to look like this!
Nice guy
A bit of a contrast compared to the previous grave
-You’re going DOWN!
Disco bowling!
Balls to the wall, baby
From a distance, I thought this was a real bird
The grafitti is much nicer in Strängnäs than in Stockholm
Nice lake view
Here, fishy fishy!
These little men were placed all around Strängnäs
Nice glasses, huh?
Linda & Jens in their boat
The little fountain outside Hotell Rogge
Hedgehog hind leg in the top left corner!
Jens, ready for another day
Linda in the boat
Swimming!
Hey sis, check out the boat
Strängnäs, city of the yellow roses
Viking Special, the legendary kebab pizza thingy
Delicious! But even when splitting it on two, we couldn’t finish it
Last weekend I was at my parents place, and on saturday we went to a big second-hand house. On this particular day, they had 50% off on everything, so I made a few bargains.
I like optics, I have a big photography and movie interest and I love old technological stuff. This was perfect.
First off, I found a west german camera from 1970: A Praktica LTL with a really fat lens (Panagor Auto Tele 200mm). The lens seem to have taken som minor hits, but the camera housing was in surprisingly good condition. Auto timer and everything seems to work fine. Cost: 60SEK.
Second, I found two old Super8 cameras, still functioning.
The first one was an Elmo Super 306 from 1976. Fantastic optics! This one still has film in it, although I’m not sure how to get it out. I didn’t have any fresh batteries, and when I inserted some with about 30% left, a red E was shown in the viewfinder. Cost including carrying case: 20SEK.
The second Super8 camera I found was a Chinon 753 from 1979. This one doesn’t have quite as good optics, but it works better on the bad batteries – Both the film spinning drive and the motorized zoom works as a charm! Plus, it is really easy to handle since it only has very few buttons and knobs to worry about. Cost including carrying case: 25SEK.
When I was basically done in the store, I found on the top shelf a dirty case that looked “antique and German”. And I was right. Having some problems getting it down, I fell in love as soon as I managed to get the case open. Inside was an old Leitz diapositive projector.
I am having trouble locating the model number as I have not seen it printed anywhere, but it might be a version of the Leitz Prado from the late 1950’s or early 1960’s.
It is in near-mint condition and works like a charm. I have now placed it on the shelf next to my other projector, 45-50 years newer. And I only paid 30SEK for it!
Now, what to do with all this stuff?
Praktica LTL
Me holding my Praktica LTL
Panagor objective for Praktica LTL
Case for Elmo Super 306
Elmo Super 306 – Handle in
Elmo Super 306 – Handle out
Elmo Super 306 – Front view
Elmo Super 306 – The leather imitation is in quite bad condition
Elmo Super 306 – Viewfinder shows a glowing E: empty batteries?
Elmo Super 306 – How do I get the film out?
Case for Chinon 753
Chinon 753
Chinon 753 – front view
Chinon 753 – Case open and fully functioning
Chinon 753 – Serial number 045?
Dirty German antique case
Leitz slide projector
Close-up of the Leitz Wetzlar logo
Leitz Wetzlar optics
You can actually see the wire in the bulb from the front!
Front view of my Leitz diapositive projector
Leitz from the side
Open backside of the Leitz projector
Close-up of the light bulb in the Leitz projector
Leitz lives!
I like the pink lights on the underside of the projector
Today I once again went to Nille at Salvation Tattoo to get some ink done.
I have always been fascinated by mechanics, robotics and mechatronics, and for the last few years I have been thinking about how to incorporate that into a tattoo. Early sketches covered basically the whole back, incorporating the biohazard sign I already have on my back into the design. Though I like biomechanical tattoos to a certain degree I now think an entire backpiece would be too much for this type of design (ask me again in five years though). The particular idea with a cogwheel using a heart as the hub first crossed my mind about a year ago, and shortly after I did the first design.
I have doodled on this design and changed quite a bit during the last year. The main problem lately has been that I have done too much details and thin lines. Since human skin is a living material it is extremely hard to make small details by pushing down ink between the skin layers (which is basically what you do). Even if you do, chances are that the details will be lost. Ink is a liquid, and liquids float and spreads out, making everything a bit fuzzy at close range. This is considerably more noticable on older tattoos, where it can be hard (or even impossible) to make out text that was clearly readable when the tattoo was first made. I have still kept a certain degree of details, mostly for thin light lines and shadows. We’ll see how they look like a few weeks from now. Also, it is quite a bit darker now (especially the lines) than it will be when healed.
I put in some symbolism in it as well, but will not go into details (let’s just say I’ve been hurt enough times). Also, can you find the Douglas Adams reference? 🙂
Tattooing your chest is a strange thing. It really hurts, but you don’t always feel the pain where you should. When Nille first started on the top right side, I felt it in the shoulder. Moving down, all of the sudden it felt like someone put a soldering iron to my nipple. This was not quite as bad as doing the elbow, but not far from it. Good thing I had my phone with me; Playing Solitaire and FreeCell partly took my mind from the pain – It helps to concentrate on something else.
M’s birthday is coming up, and instead of having a party at home we decided to go out to Östgötakällaren, one of our favorite bars in Stockholm.
Joining us were Carina, Fredde, Pirate-Johan and Caisa-Stina. Around ten o’ clock we decided to move on and ended up at Söderkällaren where we were joined by Simon & Erika.
Serotonin is both a classical neurotransmitter and a signaling molecule. To simplify things, it is a brain chemical that also can be found throughout the body (primarily in the digestive system). Its functions are among other things to help control happiness, sleep, aggression, impulsiveness, appetite, sexual lust, body temperature and metabolism. Due to a condition of mine, I have lower serotonin levels than most people. To fix that, I decided to add some of my own. 😉
I have stylized the molecule by replacing the letters HO, HN and NH2 with rings. Aside from that, I have thickened the lines and changed the angles on the inner parts slightly. If this should be entirely correct, I should replace the corners with rings as well, as they in this case represent carbon. But I chose style over substance, everything is still explainable and it looks much better this way. Big thanks to Micke Lind for the input on the molecule design!
Tattooing the elbow is probably the most painful ink I’ve done so far. The hearts on my inner upper arms did hurt a lot (and longer), but there were more twitching involved when doing the elbow.
Nille placing the template on my arm
Checking the position of the template
More template checking
First needles
Doing the tattoo outlines
Ouch
Tattooing the elbow does hurt quite a bit
Changing the position
Still working on the outlines
Now lying down
Tattoo outlines all done!
Now started with the filling
Bleeding during a short break
Blood on the floor
Tattoo bleeding
Tattoo your elbow and suit yourself
Somtimes you have to bend…
All positions are not comfortable
Hello, Luv
My Serotonin Tatto [1/5]
My Serotonin Tatto [2/5]
My Serotonin Tatto [3/5]
My Serotonin Tatto [4/5]
My Serotonin Tatto [5/5]
Afterwards I took Marianne for some thai food
Plastic wrapped around the tattoo a few hours later [1/2]
Plastic wrapped around the tattoo a few hours later [2/2]
Yesterday we went to Mercat Del Encants, a huge marketplace with many hundred (maybe thousand) of stands where absolutely everything was sold. From young men selling brand new furniture to old ladies selling used adult magazines. Lots and lots of plain junk, and often the seller had just poured everything out on the ground. It was very crowded and stressed, and we didn’t really find anything of interest.
After a few hours we took the metro and decided to jump of at Arc de Triomf, built for the 1888 world fair. Therewe first encountered musicians that we at a distance thought were protesters for something (lots of banging drums and whistles), but when coming closer we realized they were kids from a local school or something.
On the other side of the arc there was another marketplace. The contrast to Mercat Del Encants was however huge. Here everything was extremely calm, not at all crowded and the loudspeakers played soothing music. The market seemed to focus more on handcrafted items and there were also plenty of food (like an entire sausage stand) to be seen. We stopped for a while and had delicious falafel pita while sitting in the grass. About halfway through, the marketplace changed direction and started to focus on animal rights, new age, help organizations and such.
After stopping by for a while at our apartment, we did some more alley-walking in old town. Since it was Saturday, a lot more street performers was there, taking advantage of the extra crowd of people coming in over the weekend. We also crashed another wedding, saw some ancient roman pillars, had some food and later some dessert and did some final shopping.
Today we are going home, and I better finish packing now. We will wait in Frankfurt for about 3½ hours. Good thing I have plenty of movies on my Eee. 🙂
Today we started the day by visiting the 60 meter high obelisk/statue of Christopher Columbus. We paid the 2.50 € fee and took the elevator up to the top, where we got a good view of the heart of Barcelona, the old town. After that, I tamed a giant metallic lion and rode it. 😉
The rest of the day we spent alley-walking in the old town (where we live). We walked for hours and still didn’t covered half of it. Some fun shopping and surprisingly good and cheap meals were also included in the day. When the cold hit and we were both tired and with aching legs, we retired to the apartment for some relaxing.
When getting hungry again we went out for dinner and found an Italian restaurant where you could get a three-course dinner for 6.95 €. The female bouncer was very nice but the male waiter was very unengaged and almost rude. Dessert consisted of an apple.
On the way back we bought some snacks, and now we are going to watch a movie. 🙂
