I have committed fanfic together with thette.

Jag tänkte åka ner till Småland i sommar och hälsa på kjn och thette. Som ett alternativ föreslår SJ ( den här resvägen. )

SUMMARY:
Absurd route for getting from point A to point B.

In other news, the Stardust spacecraft has returned to Earth with some unexpected results.

Just downloaded via BitTorrent: Depeche Mode live at the Hammersmith Odeon, October 25 1982. It seems to be a rip of a very ancient VHS recording from Danish TV. It is professionally filmed and may have been of good quality once in a grey and distant past; unfortunately, time and probably several generations of copies have not been very kind to it, but at least it still has colour and the sound quality is listenable (but then again, my criteria for what is "listenable" may be a bit more generous than those of the man in the street). The performance itself is from another era: no Dave Gahan the Sex God, but 20-year-old Dave who is in a merry little pop band together with his rather ill-clad mates, no sheet metal, no black leather on any one of them (apart from maybe their shoes, which I can't see very clearly on account of the bad picture and the angles chosen), no Corbijn film projections, no guitar from Martin, no live drums, but a tape recorder in mid-stage... Still, it's not at all bad, and this concert has in fact been released on record on the B-sides of several limited edition 12" singles.

What makes this hilarious and slightly painful to watch is that everything — yes, even the songs — is subtitled in Danish. While this gives acceptable results for the songs from A Broken Frame where there was a lyric sheet, the Speak & Spell songs, often rather nonsensical in their own right, become slightly surreal in their Danish interpretation by ear. "Drenge møder drenge og er sammen / Drenge møder drenge, fryd og gammen / Lad være at sige nej / Drenge siger: nu!"

I for one would love to see this show released on DVD — with good image quality and no subtitles. Even if it's not the least bit representative of where Depeche Mode is today, and even if there is no overlap between their 1982 and 2005 live sets (except, maybe, "Just Can't Get Enough", which I understand they've been playing on their US gigs over the past weeks), this is a historical document that should be available to the public. And of course, a complete The Videos 81>85 (instead of the very thin selection on Some Great Videos) and a DVD re-release of The World We Live In And Live In Hamburg wouldn't be too bad either.

Utdrag ur chattlogg igår:

(18:26:08) thette: Femton gastar på död mans kista!
(18:26:32) thette: Hej och hå och en flaska med... vad du nu dricker som inte är rom!
(18:26:41) thette: Cola?
(18:27:00) awahlbom: Jag trodde alltid i min naiva barndom att det var femton *spöken* och inte femton *sjömän*.
(18:27:06) awahlbom: Nope, doesn't scan.
(18:27:21) awahlbom: "En flaska med saft" passar in i metern.
(18:27:33) thette: Ja, jo, jag har lite av varje i min mentala bild. Arrrr!
(18:27:51) thette: Det gör "en flaska med te" också.
(18:28:04) awahlbom: Hm. Det får nog bli iste i så fall.
(18:28:12) awahlbom: Men "en termos med te" fungerar ju!
(18:28:22) thette: Skulle just säga detsamma. Aye!
(18:28:32) awahlbom: Aye, 'tis true.
(18:28:44) awahlbom: *squawk* Pieces of eight!
(18:28:46) awahlbom: *squawk* Pieces of eight!
(18:28:54) awahlbom: *squawk* Pieces of nine! *parroty error*

Om jag inte har sagt det förr så är jag oerhört glad att mina vänner har samma sorts humor som jag själv...

Summary in English:
thette and myself chatting about Talk Like A Pirate-day. "Yo-ho-ho and a thermos of tea!"

Under en diskussion om superhjältars engelska respektive svenska namn på seriefrämjarlistan tidigare i kväll (t.o.m. Stålmannen har börjat kallas Superman även i Sverige) kom jag att tänka på att det ju inte heter lapp längre, och sedan kom min onda hjärna fram till "Lädersamen och Robin". Sedan vågade jag inte tänka längre. Baaad brain, no biscuit for you!

[SUMMARY: Names of American superheroes are no longer translated. Stupid pun on Batman's traditional Swedish name. Be glad you don't speak the language.]

I don't have the time to watch this, but it seems faintly amusing.

Kalla mig gärna infantil¹, men jag tycker den här företagswebbsidan är rolig. Det är ett japanskt företag som tillverkar kyl- och ventilationsanläggningar, och som synbarligen inte har penetrerat den svenska marknaden.

¹ "There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes." – Den fjärde Dr Who (Tom Baker) i sista delen av Robot (1974)

Co-worker J comes up to me and says: "You did notice that Cthulhu is back?" — referring, of course, to a book I lent him about a year ago and that he left on my desk this weekend. I gently remind him that the phrase "Cthulhu's back" should not be used lightly... :-)