My Summer, Part 5: Finland & DVDs & Infinite Sadness

Summer ends:

Day 29: Left Lkpg, went to Helsinki (it's in Finland) to visit a cousin (as I said I would). Bought her some vodka-filled chocolates as a gift. Watched I Heart Huckabees (2004) and drank some booze.
Day 30: Wandered around Helsinki, bought a couple of DVDs. Watched 8 Women (2002). Went to the pub, played some games. Met a gay man from Åland.
Day 31: Ate a disgusting pizza, which the Finns tried to make me believe was good (Finns have very bad taste). Watched my cousin's roommate move. Didn't help. Went to the pub, played some games.
Day 32: Bought a comic book for a friend's brother and mailed it to her (I mean the friend, the friend's brother is male). Left Finland, went to Sthlm. Stayed with the Mook for a day. Watched Holy Mountain (1973) and drank a couple of his father's beers.
Day 33: Went shopping in Sthlm (found two OOP collections of Miracleman on Söder - how bout that?), left Sthlm, went home to Falun. Watched The Birds (1963).
Days 34-37: Spent four days alone, mostly watching DVDs and drinking beer and reading comics. I watched the remaining episodes of Ugly Betty (2006-2007) and then I Heart Huckabees (2004) (again), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), To Catch A Thief (1955), When the Wind Blows (1986), Ellie Parker (2005), Cherish (2002), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Requiem for a Dream (2000), Rear Window (1954), The Devil's Backbone (2001) and United 93 (2006). (I may review them all here on SUPERBLOG!! eventually.) Read John Woo's Seven Brothers Vol 1 and Osamu Tezuka's Buddha Vol 5 and 6 and 7, and Hellblazer: Original Sins.
Day 38 (today): My summer is over, which is why James Van Der Beek is looking sad. I'll pay some bills and cry and hope to die.

My Summer, Part 4: DVDs & Scotland

SUPERBLOG!! Link of the Day: Boring Harry Potter Personality Test. I was Gilderoy Lockhart.

Summer continues. Lost of Wikipedia links this time. Aren't those FUN?

Day 16: Bought another fuckload of comics. Continued my nostalgic superhero binge with Secret Wars, which, to my great surprise, held up very well. Weird.
Day 17: Left Lickpig, went back to my apartment in Falun for the first time in 19 days, read Don't Go Where I Can't Follow. Reread The Authority: Kev, and The Authority: The Magnificent Kevin.
Day 18: Read A Man Called Kev, the last part of the Kev Hawkins tetralogy, or whatever you'd call it. Went shopping for food. Reread Punisher Max: From First to Last and All-Star Superman Vol 1. Both fairly excellent. (Level of intoxication: 0.9.)
Day 19: Read Shiny Beasts - pretty fun. Watched Equilibrium (2002) - sucked. Watched About Schmidt (2002) - a moving dramedy, maybe a little too long. But Nicholson has rarely been better. (Level of intoxication: 1.1.)
Day 20: Watched a bunch of episodes of NewsRadio - not very good, but I love some of the actors, especially Phil Hartman. Read The Three Paradoxes - slightly disappointing, cos it's fine but I expected more. (The title refers to Zeno's paradoxes). Watched Secretary (2002), an unusual relationship comedy starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader. The last act wasn't very good, but otherwise I liked it. Watched The Color of Money (1986), Scorsese's worthy follow-up to The Hustler (1960) (given a one-word review in Part 8 of The Year of Watching DVDs). (Level of intoxication: 1.3.)
Day 21: Finished I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets - The Comics of Fletcher Hanks - brilliant and insane. Watched Final Destination (2000), which I got from Sammy for my birthday. Dr Arzt from Lost and Ali Larter from Heroes (dissed in Part 19 of my DVD-watching extravaganza) are in it. The tacked-on ending super-sucks. The alternate version, available on the DVD, is much more satisfying and and gels better with the rest of the movie. A short documentary featuring interviews with the film executives on why the ending was changed is an interesting case study of how to suckify your movie to reach it's commercial potential. Watched Hoffa (1992) - okay, not great. Jack Nicholson is very good as Jimmy Hoffa, but Danny DeVito is wrong for his character, and the script is one of David Mamet's weaker ones. Watched Next (2007). Nic Cage sees up to two minutes into the future, is hunted by Julianne Moore. Jessica Biel is girl of his dreams. Fascinating premise (based on PKD story), pedestrian execution. Like, you know, pretty much all PKD adaptations. (Level of intoxication: 1.3)
Day 22: Left Falun, went to Sthlm, continued to Nyköping and then Prestwick, Scotland. Then Tiny Troon. Hung around in a hotel bar. (Level of intoxication: 3.6)
Day 23: Left Troon, went to Glasgow. Wandered around. Bought 5 DVDs and a book. (Level of intoxication: 2.5)
Day 24: Left Glasgow, went to Skavsta and then to Lkpg. Bought a book and a DVD.
Day 25: Didn't do much. Watched a few eps of Ugly Betty and Veronica Mars for reasons that remain hazy.
Day 26: Went out. Finished Thinks... by David Lodge.
Day 27: Never left the house. Watched more Ugly Betty. Read some.
Day 28 (yesterday): Finished Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen. It was okay, I guess, but not very good. Cover by Charles Burns! Went to Ryd and watched The Illusionist (2006) with some people - fun evening but somewhat disappointing film.

My Summer, Part 3: Comics & Beer

SUPERBLOG!! Link of the Day: Manga-esque Simpsons

Summer continues:

Day 10: Read 52 Vol 1. It was decent.
Day 11: Went with my Dad to the mall, bought 3 DVDs. Hooray! Read Punisher Max: The Slavers. Full review may be forthcoming.
Day 12: Watched The Queen, read Punisher Max: Barracuda. Both good.
Day 13: Spent half an hour waiting in line on the phone with my parents' ISP. Finished Showcase Presents Superman Vol 3 (I'm really on a nostalgic superhero binge here). Shaved. Went drinking and shooting the shit with Rudolf. (Level of intoxication: 2.6)
Day 14: Finished Savage Dragon Archives Volume 3 which reads exactly like it was written and drawn by a teenage boy (though in a fairly good way). Listened to the Beach Boys. Had a few beers with my pal Xerxes. (Level of intoxication: 1.6)
Day 15 (yesterday): Went to the foot guy and received a clean bill of foot health. Went to the country. Went drinking with Sammy & Rudolf the Designated Driver. Mocked the latter mercilessly, for reasons previously indicated on SUPERBLOG!! (Level of intoxication: 3.9)

And SO... life stumbles on.

My Summer, Part 2

SUPERBLOG!! Link of the Day: Cat macros plus the SUPERBLOG!! RSS feed equals something. Excerpt above.

Summer continues:

Day 5: Bought a t-shirt and a bag of chips, felt ugly, almost had an anxiety attack, watched Grabben i graven bredvid (a mediocre/okayish Swedish film), and read the first volumes of Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor and The Boys. Both were moderately entertaining but far from excellent. Then the rain came and washed everything away.
Day 6: Left Lickpig, went to Sthlm, met some cousins, drank some. (Level of intoxication: 3.0)
Day 7: Had a birthday, spent it with a couple of my cousins, mainly lying around and watching stupid TV (plus the epic masterpiece Risky Business, featuring a young Joe Pantoliano as Guido the Klever Biznizman). Looked through several video stores for a DVD to watch (my cousin has the slowest Internet connection and the saddest movie collection in the Western world), but couldn't find any. The horror!!
Day 8: Wandered around Sthlm, bought more comics and a book and a DVD. Left Sthlm, went to Lickpig, read Hellboy Volume 3: The Chained Coffin and Others, slept some.
Day 9 (yesterday): Spent the entire day inside. Watched White Oleander, read Battler Britton and Justice League: A New Begging. (The Oleander film, though not without its flaws, was the best of the three.) Drank nothing, which might be a first for a Saturday this year.

The plot is clearly thickening.

My Summer, Part 1

Summer 2007 go! I'm gonna blog lots this summer, and each entry will be less interesting than the next, and at the end of summer, we will have ZERO (0) (zero) readers left. I say "we" but of course my co-SUPERBLOG!!ger Sambo has virtually quit blogging at this point so it's mostly just me until I kill Sambo with a spoon and then it's entirely just me.

Anyway, here's what I've done so far:

Day -1: Worked some, left Phalun, went to Lickpig.
Day 0: Stopped working, went to Were-Mountain, ate hot dogs, drank some. (Level of intoxication: 3.4)
Day 1: Midsummer's Eve! Watched the rain, sang badly, felt sorry for myself, drank some. (Level of intoxication: 3.6)
Day 2: Midsummer's Day! Played kubb, got sunburned, had several important discussions (If you were to be abducted by animals and raised as one of them, which type of animal would be the least preferable? etc. Somebody suggested koalas, but I refrained from revealing my secret identity), stepped in a marsh and got wet, drank some. (Level of intoxication: 3.1)
Day 3: Other Day Midsummer. Contemplated starting a cereal review blog, left Were-Mountain, returned to Lickpig.
Day 4 (yesterday): Officially began my vacation. Slept, watched "banned" cartoons with racist stereotypes in them, bought a fuckload of comics, watched a sucky Swedish movie.

Total number of DVDs watched: 1.
Total number of kisses received: 0.
Total number of injuries sustained: 2.

That's not good.