Divine Inspiration

It is 23 pm on a Friday night - unusually early for the kind of creative productivity urge that I'm experiencing. Some of you have been bombarded with lengthy text messages - I hope I'm not bothering you all too much. I wish Da-Ryun had finished watching McLeod's daughters, then I could have told you about my emotional state that is very similar to what I felt when I watched the last few episodes of that. But alas! I can not do that without giving her spoilers.

It's a strange feeling - being all alone in a dark room. All is silent and the world is somewhere else. Hundreds of thoughts flash through your mind and time stands still. And at the same time I know that there is not time enough in this life to do all the things that I am thinking of. Somehow I am going to have to sift through all those thoughts and pursue and explore the ones that are worthwhile. At one point in the X-Files Scully tells Mulder that Agent Dogget is worthwhile. I realize now what a huge compliment that is. I hope people find me worthwhile sometimes.

I have finished reading the Great Gatsby and I think that I need to read more of those Great American Novel's - there is a lot to learn about the American people in them. I have also watched Charles Dickens' Bleak House (BBC mini series). If you wonder why I chose that one out of all the BBC production-style dramas that are available it was because it stars Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully for those of you who did not know that already). I do that sometimes, or actually quite often. If I see something that I like in terms of movies and TV-series I look up other movies and series with the same actor/actress because I find that that is a good way to separate what is worthwhile and what is not.

I have also watched a few talk-show appearances with named actress. That is an other thing that I like to do - when I like an actor or actress I like to read about them and watch interviews to get a feeling about their personality, you should try it sometime! In any case I found that Gillian Anderson is quite an interesting person, if you have nothing better to do you should check out her appearances on David Letterman in chronological order, then we can talk about it.

As I informed Da-Ryun about half an hour ago I am going to read a DC comic series called Fables. It uses characters from folklore and since I am currently reading HC Andersens fairy tales I thought that it might be interesting. I hope I'm right. I hope it's worthwhile :)

Strangest of all is that I find a strain of thoughts going through my mind repeatedly. It is really just a few concepts, loosely tied together, but I think that I have a story to tell. It's interesting, I've never felt that before and I might just sit down and write it - if I dare. If I find it worthwhile.

Now I am going to watch Pay it Forward - a very good movie. Very worthwhile. How do I know that? Because it is one of those movies that I pick because of the cast - Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey. And also because I have seen it before :p

The Severed Head of a Horse

Watching an episode of the X-Files I was inspired by the mentioning of the weight of a severed head to find out the approximate weight of a male human upper-body. Why this instant leap? Anton wanted to know how big and heavy his Centaur character is. I don't know if you got an answer but here is what I came up with:

The human torso in itself weighs about 2/3 of the total body weight (from now on referred to as TBW). An average man's arm weighs about 6 % of TBW and the head with neck weighs about 5 kg.
For a rather large man, say 90 kg, that would amount to: 60kg (torso) + 2*5,4kg (arms) + 5 kg (head) = ca. 75kg (Yes, I rounded down. It's a nice and even number.).

So uhm, how much does a horse's head and neck weigh? No luck in my googling so I made a very rough estimation: Torso, once again 2/3 of TBW (seems reasonable, in my opinion). That leaves 1/3 for legs and head and neck. My guess is that the legs weigh more than the head and neck, but not by much, 3/5 as opposed to 2/5 of 1/3 of TBW? Let's go for that. That amounts to 2/15 of TBW. Anton was looking at big horses so big horsie it is. Nordsvensk weighs about 600-650kg (I think) so for that breed the head with the neck would weigh about 87 kg (let's make it 90). In that case a Centaur would weigh about 15 kg less than a horse with equal build (with an error margin of 100 % that's still only +/- 30kg).

In finding all this info I got stuck in a trivia hunt (as is often the result of combining late night with boredom and an internet connection). I will not wouch for the credibility of these following statements but I find them interesting (but mostly useless):

On average (a. from now on), women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Right-handed people live on a. 9 years longer than left-handed people.

The a. human can live up to 11 days without water, given a surrounding temperature of 60 F (about 15 C).

An a. person would die from total sleep deprivation after about 10 days, while it takes a few weeks to die from starvation. (That would mean that sleep is as important to the body as water, right?)

The a. human can lose up to 1/3 of her blood without dying.

The ashes of an a. cremated person weighs about 4kg.

The brain has no sensation of pain (not even if it is cut).

The only human body-part that never change size from birth to death is the eye(ball).

The thumb has its own control-center in the brain, separate from the rest of the fingers.

We filter out about 99% of our perceptions. (Imagine what we could do if we just changed that by 1-2%! More than that would probably lead to autism.)

The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as replacement for blood plasma. (Could be useful, if a hemophiliac got stranded on a paradise island. But how do you define "young"?)

Intelligent people have more zink and copper in their hair. (Really?)

More than 2500 persons are killed every year from using right-handed products. (WTF!?)

Dog-Training

After having spent, I don't know, 4 hours trying to determine the constants A, B and C for which (5cosX+9sinX)^2=Acos2X+Bsin2X+C I had lunch. By then I was looking for something else to do but couldn't come up with anything. Then I realized that I would be doing everyone (I mean it, every single person on this planet) a huge favour if I could dicipline our dog a little. But seriously, how long can you go on with Sit! Stay! Lie down! Come! and Search! without geting bored? (About five and a half minute, since he already knows them fairly well, and our house is only so big) He obviously needed a new trick in the repertoire. So I spent an other 10 minutes practicing Stand! Ok, so it's completely useless, so what? It's cool. This dude has hind legs with the movability of an acrobat so he's pretty good at it. Sometimes when we're out walking and he wants to take a look around but the grass is to high for him to see anything he will stand up, balancing on his two hind legs, looking around for a few seconds and then fall back to all four. He looks a bit like an over-sized meerkat...

Perfect timing

I don't think that I have ever caught a train with so small a margin. Literally ten secconds after I sat down in the first available seat the train started moving! Mind note for next time: take the 7:40 bus, not the 8:00 for a train that leaves at 8:28. I was dead all the way home, sadly chance worked against me as circumstances forced me to remain awake for the entire day. Now I have caught up with my sleep and is reasonably alert. I even went up at 9:15 this morning!

I was hoping to be able to return to you guys on thursday but alas! Once again things are not going as I planned. My trip to Uppsala has been postponed to said thursday because my parents are going on a cruise monday-wednesday. Then it turns out that my precence is expected at my grandmothers' on saturday. With all this in mind my new ETA is 17:55 on sunday, July 20th, see you then, I hope. A humble suggestion on my behalf: bring swimwear!

Not quite english

This is a comment to a torrent that I found:
5/5 . This is a great torrent download. And of cause, Age of Empire rocks!!!! Thanks again, for this awesome download. I will endure playing it

Time passes

Tonight Spain and Russia meet in the semi-final in the European Championship in football, usually referred to as soccer by uncivilised people. Now, do not let yourselves be misled to believe that I am actually interested in the silly game - most of the time they are just running around doing nothing for 90 minutes with the occational goal, it is more than enough to set me to sleep any time of the day - my interest in this event is purely... well, let's face it: geeky. The team that wins the game tonight will be facing Germany in the final and as boring as the sport in itself is I can certainly appreciate the analogy to both WWI and WWII! At this very moment I can see myself sitting there by the TV, replacing the names of the players with the appropriate historical figures depending on their actions and achievments in the game. Perhaps David could help me with this? And Sara too, of course.

I realised today for the tenth time this week how isolated I am and that I am most likely going to suffer from severe tristess this summer. I have nothing to do and no money to do anything with, so all I can do is read. A lot. Yesterday, for instance, I finished reading The Blood (the definitive player's guide to the requiem) and is more inspired than ever to play a blood-sucking monster. (Rik: I have an idea, I'll tell you about it next time I call you) And I guess my next project will be to read the entire Arcana Evolved, front to back, no mercy. Oh, and I am watching The X-Files, really good series, if you like character development and conspiracy theories. And then there's a bunch of other films an TV-series to watch. The problem is, as always, that even peeling potatoes with you guys is more interesting and rewarding than sitting alone in a shadowy room reading about/watching people that don't exist.

Random Rants II

I'm sitting at Carolina Rediviva, trying to read a thick and dry book about international trade and fighting an overwhelming tiredness. I don't know why I'm tired, I slept good this night and for once I got up at a responsible hour (9 am). And I'm also hungry, which dosen't make sense since I ate breakfast less than 3 hours ago. This makes me confused.