Ok, let's start with the math. Yeah, I know, maths bore most people. But this is my blog and I'll calculate if I want to (calculate if I want to). You'd calculate too if it happened to you. Appologize to Lesley Gore. I just couldn't help myself there...

What I'm going to sum up in today's post is hours in a day. As we all know, a day is, roughly, 24 hours long. For the sake of this argument, let's just agree on that. Now, me travelling to work, working and returning home from work is done between the hours 9 am and 6 pm. That makes 9 hours away from home.
9
Last week, and probably this week as well, I go to bed at about 10 pm. I only work 4 hours a day, but the rest of that 9 hour shift is done mostly walking, which is quite tiring. I get out of bed at 7 am. 10 pm, 7 am, that makes 9 hours in bed, sleeping and reading.
9 + 9 = 18
I get up at 7 and leave at 9? Why does breakfast take two hours, you might ask? Well, I don't like to rush meals and I used to get up at around 7 on the last job, so... Also, with a two hour safety margin, I have good insurance against oversleeping.
18 + 2 = 20
24 - 20 = 4
And there we have it. On normal days, currently, I have 4 hours to make dinner, eat dinner, write this blog, check my mail and play computer games. It's a lot less than normal. But the depressing part is just comming up...

Currently I'm working 4 hours a day. In a not so distant future I will be forced to work 8 hours a day. If 4 hours is all I can spare on eating and writing this blog, and in the future I will work 4 hours more... That means no time for dinner! Oh well, I'll figure it out somehow. I just find that chain of thoughts rather upsetting.

Good news. True, the good part can be debated, but so can all things. I got verification today that I WILL be working where I am now for at least another month. I kind of like the work I do so that's good. But more important than that is the money issue. Currently I pay with a rebate card on the trains. 40 crowns per trip. Instead of 50, so that is good, I guess. Still: 40 * 2 * 5 = 400 each week. That's a lot of cash! Now, with the knowledge that I will be staying for a full month, I can buy the month card tomorrow. Which, according to my research, should cost 690. So instead of paying 4 * 400 = 1600 a month, I'll be paying 690. I mentioned this to my contact person, who came visiting today and he was rather stunned that I hadn't bought one already. The logic is simple: I did not know wether or not I was going to stay for a month. In my mind, nothing can be said with certainty once we get into governmental affairs. Samhall is owned by the government, so...

Anyhow. Tomorrow morning I will spend the most money in a single purchase that I've done for the last two months. At that time I bough my new computer. Which I like. It does everything I want it to do, so I'm happy about it :).

Ok, one last mention related to work. I ended work early today. The reasoning is that we begin a bit earlier than the norm and we only have a half hour lunch break. Therefore we can finish work early on Fridays. This effects me in a way that might not be perfect... The thing is that the trains didn't match each other very well. So I had to wait 20 minutes in Eslöv and 20 minutes in Lund... Oh well, I had a book with me.

Today's post is actually not about work though. It's about other people who go on the train with me. Although, the behaviour I'm writing about today takes place off the train. I have three items. The first two I've written about before, but they still upset me so I'll keep writing about it. It's the whole wenting theory: I write it down, it leaves my brain and I can go on to other things.

Item one: smokers. Yes, I've written about them quite often. Lately there has been something of a remodelling of the platforms in Lund and Kävlinge. They've introduced wind shelters. Nothing major, three walls made of glass. It stops the wind from blowing in your face. I wonder why nobody has thought of this before... We've only had trains for a few hundred years, right? Anyway, too often I'm chased out of these wind shelters by someone smoking. Kind of like I get chased out of waiting booths on bus stops. I don't have a problem with people smoking because they're smoking. We all have our vices. Some smoke, some drink alcohol, some do drugs etc etc. The thing that upsets me is that smokers seem to have this urge to do it where they can effect as many people as possible... In front of doors to supermarkets, schools, libraries, train stations and so on and so forth. If I wanted tobacco smoke in my lounges I would take up smoking. I don't, so I won't.

Item two: stressed people bording trains. A train is comming in. Even before it has stopped, people are moving, trying to be at the doors as soon as possible. I'm lazy, so I wait until the train has stopped, so I can find out which door is the closest. It's my way. But it doesn't stop there. No, people ALWAYS have to crowd around the doors. Making sure that leaving is as impossible as possible (did that make any sense? too late now, I'm keeping it). It's very simple: people leaving the train have other things to do than wait for people to get out of the way. In fact, quite a lot of them need to catch other trains leaving on other platforms or busses or, simply, need to get to work. But their fellow train commuters just have to be in the way... Why? You don't get to your destination faster if you board the train faster, do you?

Item three: steps. This is sort of a new one. I've noticed the behavior before, but a few days ago was the worst... The idea is simple. On the platform there are limited shelters from the wind. The wind shelters in paragraph one? They're not everywhere, yet. Therefore people stand under roof in the steps leading up to the platform. Now I'm not very good at steps and stairs. I prefer to have on hand on the handle bar at all times. If people are standing there though, I can't... Now, why was two days ago the worst? Well, like I noted at the time, it was rather windy that day. Therefore quite a lot of people were standing on the steps. A LOT. I had to pretty much push my way through to get to the platform. Logic questions my action there: surely I didn't want to stand out in the wind either? Well, out on the platform is the only place to find out the schedule for train departures. Also, every platform has two trains leaving from them. What if all the people waiting were waiting for the OTHER train? I worry about things like this. I'm a worryer. Accept it, decide not to, I don't care. As long as I am this way, I will behave in a way accordingly.

Please note: not everybody is like the ones mentioned above. It's just that they seem to stand out more. Me writing about it won't change their ways, but maybe I can get it off my chest and do something else for a while. *picks up a big katana and heads over to Steel City* time to slice up some Tsoo!

I thought yesterday that that would be the end of these posts. I didn't think anything new would happen at work. In trouth, nothing has. The way I see it, I will probably get more jobs that are box-related. They will involve folding, bending and breaking of paper. Perhaps also a bit of gluing, cutting and taping. All in all though, I doubt anything really interesting will happen in the near future. Oh, in the not so near future, I will be getting eight hour days instead of four hour ones. And with the travel I have, it will mean 13 hours away from home. That will be a change. But for now, nothing new that I can perceive on the horizon.

No, what happened today was a comment made by a co-worker that lead to me thinking. I think you guessed it: I forgot to start my MP3-player while walking to the train station. What with work not being over thought provocing and a nice 30 minute walk there was a lot of time to think. I sort of wish I could stop doing that... Oh well. Her comment was simply: You can see a result of your work. And that's true. After folding 128 boxes you put them in a bigger box. You mark it 128 pieces and put that box next to other boxes. That box you just filled? YOU filled that box. A noticeable change has come to the world. Nothing can dispute that. True, we need to make 28.000 boxes over the next few weeks, so 128 might not sound much, but it's a good start.

Ok, time for negativity. I'm a pessimist as you probably know by now. Sooner or later I will think dark thoughts. The thought that occured to me was this: That is one thing I disliked about cleaning. Let's face it. I go into a classroom or a toilet. Most of the time, it looks clean to me. There really is no reason to clean it. But our job is to clean every classroom and every toilet. Daily  Regardless of wether we think it's neccessary or not. At one point in week one and two, I didn't start work because of the key issue. The issue being no keys + locked door = me going home and getting back to bed. During that Friday and Monday NOTHING was cleaned! That SHOULD mean that the place was a TOTAL mess on Tuesday morning!! After all, if we clean daily and we skip two whole days, surely the world will have ended? From what I remember, it looked every bit as clean as it did after we left the room... In other words: I did not see a result of a full day of cleaning. To me it was clean when I got there. I cleaned it thoroughly and it looked clean when I left. Kind of pointless in my view...

There are other reasons to me disliking cleaning. But they're mostly childish and not very sensible.

The week is almost over. Parts of me ache. But parts of me ached after cleaning as well. It's simply a matter of using muscles I'm not used to. And monotonous work, of course. After all, we do the same movements over and over. I believe that there are rules dictating that you aren't allowed to work eight hours straight on the same work station. I don't, since I don't work eight hours a day. But my work mates apparently do. Oh, and before I forget. The boss of the place, who I ask what to do every morning, DID ask me this morning if I thought it was ok to do the folding boxes thing again. So the thought of repetitive labour has struck him. Unfortunately for him, and my back, I like doing what I'm doing now. I don't always talk to my work mates much, but I can usually hear quite interesting conversations. The benefit of working with women... They chat more, in my experience.

Ok, let's start off with the travel bit. It was windy today and much of the road I walk to get to work is devoid of houses. A bit of a sniffle. Nothing important happened to or from work.

So, what work did I do today? Well, I mentioned box making yesterday. That's what I did. All day. And it was quite enjoyable at times. It was simple and easy work (once I got the hang of it). There was a fair bit of chatting going on (working with women always brings out my chattier side). The big thing to happen today though were the compliments...

The basic task was folding paper a few times, thus ending up with a octagonal box with a built in lid as it were. At one point, the woman working oposit me said something to the effect of my pile of done boxes was scaring her. I tried telling her that it was because I was new. Eventually I would calm down on the efficency. In my view, when you're new, you try to prove yourself and work harder than your actually able. To an extent of course. Do it too much and you damage shoulders, arms and hands. Also back. I'll get back to that later I think.

When we had a few boxes, we put them in a bigger box. At first I simply filled up the box on the table behind me. But then I got my own box to fill... The box is rather large. When I put small boxes in the last one I had to stand up to do it. Also, the lids (which we were under strikt rules NOT to shut completely, yet) meant that the boxes were pushing each other. Making it difficult to line them up straight. Yesterday I witnessed someone having the box on the floor, to minimise the standing up procedure. But that didn't fix the box lid thing and bending down is bad for your back. How to solve this?

Well, I put the box sideways, easily accessable to me while sitting down. I turned it so that the boxes would be put on top of each other, thereby letting gravity handle the lid problem. Before I go any further: most of these reasons were thought of afterwards. I just thought it would make the most sense. Yeah, inspiration can be quick and mostly, in my case, it comes without much thought... Again the woman opposite me complimented on my organisational skills. She told me it was obvious that I had worked where I now work before, since I knew skills like that. I told her I'd been there only three days... Well, she was impressed.

So much so that she later called me on it (this is the part where I prove myself to be clever or we find out that I'm just an idiot that got lucky once). Six boxes were put on a pallet. Four in a row and two sideways next to them. Now, on floor two, as it were, there was only room for three in a row? Any more and it would topple over. I was called over with the words to the effect of "you're clever, figure this out".

Did I? This is my blog, surely I wouldn't write about it if I failed, would I? The solution was to space the two on the side apart more, creating a hole in the middle. Like the foundations on a bridge. Oh, and if you're building a bridge: figure out the weight etc before starting to build, ok? In this case, they were empty boxes consisting mostly of air. So that was easy enough. I believe that the reaction I got was something to the effect of "anybody could figure that out". Well, that's the true definition of a genious, isn't it? Someone who does something so darn easy anyone could've done it. It takes a genious to actually do it.

Oh, two more compliments (non-spoken). When most of the group had left (there are rules about some people leaving early or in unison or something, I didn't quite get it) there were only three of us left. The two women turned their boxes the same way I had. To me this was the hight of compliment. Copying is the highest form of flattery, as they say.

Just noticed I didn't mention the back thing... The pre-box paper was in a box (I'll let that cat out of the bag: I work at a company called Sydbox. it makes boxes. that's it). Previously this box had been on the floor. When it was my turn to get a new full one, I put it on a table. Anything to minimise the bending down bit. It's bad for your back.

Surely not everything was a dance on roses today? Well... I did forget my backpack in my locker. But that doesn't really matter, I'll bring my lunch in a shopping bag tomorrow, no worries.

Things are looking up though, all things considered.

Yeah, this Livejournal is turning into a diary again. I guess it's only logical, since new things happen on a dailry basis what with my new job and all. The Blood Sucker reference in the subject line? Well, everywhere I've looked it's werewolves and vampires lately. There is something of a blood sucking incident later on though, so it isn't lying, per say. I call that technique Attention Grabbing. TV shows do it all the time: "Stay tuned for our interview with world famous celebrity, comming right up!". Of course, they always put that at the very end of the show, to make sure that you keep watching. It could almost make you cynicle...

Let's start at the beginning. And with a job that is two towns away, the logical start is with the travel. Now, I've been thinking that me getting there half an hour early is rather silly, really. There are other trains to catch, surely? Well, I thought about why I did that and I got an answer today. Simply put, the train from Kävlinge was 10 minutes late. That meant that I left Lund 25 minutes later than I did yesterday. I got to work just in time so it was all well. Thank goodness I had that safety margin though.

Which brings us to me getting lost... Twice. Now, to go from the station to my place of labour, you go right, right, right, left, right, left, right, right, left, left, right and then left. The second left is turning left on a big road into a smaller road. Since I was so caught up with walking, I forgot to turn left... I got to the next road to the left and thought: hey, this isn't right... Something smilar happened to me last week. I was out walking and I spaced out for a while and noticed that I had gotten further than I thought. Of course, today I backtracked and all was well. Not exactly... The second to last left? I missed that one as well... Oh well, I got on time to work, that's what is important, right?

So, what did I do today? The same as yesterday. The difference being that while we were two yesterday, we were seven today. The reason being we had to finish the order since it will be going out tomorrow. It was during one of those MANY handlings of paper that I cut myself. Nothing major, I thought. Sure it stung a lot, but it can't be that bad. Actually, checking my hand when I got home I noticed six cuts. In two days. So I thought it was just a small scrape. Then the blood started comming out... Again, it didn't really bother me. I put the finger in my mouth (blood sucking, get it?) and it was clean. But it just wouldn't stop... Since I kept working and there are a lot of arteries on the fingers blood kept comming out... I went to the bathroom and ran some cold water on it. Didn't work for long. In the end, my body gave up and it stopped. I'm pretty sure that my blood is on a few of those pieces of paper though... I hope I don't have anything damaging to our customers? Extra note: it is quite difficult typing 3, e, d, or c at this point in time. It really was quite a deep cut and the middle finger on the left hand handles those letters...

Oh, and we got that done at about three pm. So I still had an hour to go. I spent it folding boxes. It's exactly as dull as it sounds. However, it took quite a lot more brain power than just folding paper. I hardly had enough time to get bored. Quite fiddly work (small boxes). It was also more "fun". The paper being folded earlier was just cardboard brown. The boxes had text and pictures on them. It's nice to have nice things to look at.

Going home, I didn't visit ICA. So I got on a train that left at 16.47 instead of 16.58. Ha-ha! I would be home ten minutes earlier because of it! Well, actually, no. There are quite a lot of trains between Lund and Eslöv, but only one between Lund and Kävlinge. Eh, what ever. I got home about an hour earlier today. Things are looking up.

Confession time: forgive me, whoever is reading, for I have sinned. Three days ago, Saturday, I didn't go out walking that evening. The logic being that I had already been out walking for about the same time I usually walk. Even worse: I didn't go out walking today. The odds are that I won't go out walking on Thursday either. There is a reason... I'm dead tired. Unlike EVERY other job I've been to, there really aren't any down times. If you complete the job you're doing, there are a lot of others waiting. The good thing is that I won't get bored with nothing to do, the bad (well...) is that I never stop working. Most tiring. Also, walking to the station in Eslöv and from the station in Kävlinge is quite tiring.

All that said though: thank goodness I got into walking two months ago. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have the stamina for it today!

I haven't written a report about what has happened to me lately in a while now. The main reason being that the things that are happening are quite depressing... To recap: I interned, with a lot of floor cleaning, which ended with depression. The Job Distributers KNOW this, so of course they put me on floor cleaning full time. Is it really that strange that I get paranoid every now and then? Although, like Woody Allen once said: It's not paranoia if everybody really IS out to get you. (third hand information on that quote though, if you spread it on it'll be fourth).

Anyway, what has happened lately? Well, today's post will be about what has happened today. Enough has happened today to fill a whole post. However, I'm going to do a bit of a prolog conserning Thursday and Saturday last week...

Last Thursday, at around 20 minutes till end of day, I get a phone call from my contact person at Samhall. Apparently the OTHER assignment that might, might not, happen in two or three weeks time will happen on Monday (today). I just needed to talk to the person handling that detail, Claudia. (this is foreshadowing, there is a reason why I mention her name :)). So, I said bye to all my co-workers before leaving. After all, it might be the last time I see them. The meeting on Friday went smothly. Nothing interesting happened, really. Oh, my contact did mention that the walk between the train station in Eslöv to the place of work would take 5-10 minutes. Last time he had said 15 minutes... Well, what ever.

On Saturday I dragged it along for a while... I had planned on going by train to Eslöv to take a look at the place before starting there on Monday. Who knows, it might be difficult to find? But I kept postponing it. In the end I said to myself: Tomorrow. Now, do you have a guardian angel? I did, in this case. His name is Draco and he's my brother. He thought it would be something of an adventure to walk around Eslöv to help me find my way. (he really is nice, deep down, although he hides it well, sometimes). So we went there. We drove around... And around... Difficult to find my new place of work was! Anyway, we finally found it. We parked the car (my brother was hesitant, after all, there are those who trash cars for fun). Since I had printed out a map beforehand, we made our way to the train station. On the way we noticed that several simplifications could be done with the route. That's good to know. When we finally reached the station I checked my watch (mobile phone really, I don't own a watch anymore). We went back to the car using the straightest route. Took us 30 minutes... And that was from the train station to the gates in front of the complex. How long would it take getting to the right place within it? And what about trafic? Surely it would be heavier on a normal day. Oh well. We found what we were looking for. I got a time. It was good.

Wow, long prolog. Anyhow. This morning I left home at about 9 am. A bit earlier actually, good thing too... When I got to Kävlinge train station, I tried filling up my train card (it's a thing with a magnetic strip, they've promoted it heavily in recent years, everything to avoid cash in public places). So I handed the station personel my card and some cash. She took the card and handed me a JoJo card... What? No: she STOLE my card from me, let's be honest. Oh well, the train card they've promoted heavily? It's being replaced. It would have to happen sooner or later anyway, so what ever (this is another foreshadowing, it will all make sense later on, I promise). She also gave me a five minute lecture of how to use the card... Quite strange, it uses a RFID tag instead of a magnetic strip.

So I got to the train station in Lund. After some difficulties with getting the JoJo thing to work... I left the platform. Went onto another platform. Waited for a few minutes and then the train showed up. At 9.52 I was in Eslöv. So I started walking. At 10.30 I had started working. I really shouldn't have, I should've rolled my thumbs until 11.00, but I was eager to discover new things. You know how it is. So, how to describe what I did all day... This will be difficult I fear:

1. I took 5 sheets of corrugated cardboard. I folded it along a preperforated line in the middle, lengthvise, until it broke off. Now I had 10 sheets of corrugated cardboard in a neat pile.
2. I put the 10 down on a table. Along another line I bent the 10 sheets, widevise. I did this 9 times. Ending up with 10 pieces.
3. 10 pieces, 10 sheets in each made 100 pieces of corrugated cardboard.
4, I put this pile next to a few others and went back to do it again.
5. After 15 piles had been put on a pallet (EU-pall in Swedish) I put one sheet on top of them.
6. Then I put another 1500 sheets of cardboard on top of it.
7. And again.
8. And again.
9. Now I had 6000 pieces of corrugated cardboard. Surely I would do something different now? Nope. That pallet was removed and another was put in it's place to be filled...
10. At ten past four I went home.

Interesting thing that happened... Well, there was the step incidents :(. Right outside of the lunch room was a small step. During the coffee break, I stumbled upon it, spilling liquid on the floor. Water, no need to clean up. After lunch, I stumbled again, this time with me ending up on the floor... Well, I got up and went along my way. To the rest of the world: if you have depth perception, can you SEE that there is a step there? I can't. You know, if I get a reputation for being clumsy, I will at least understand it.

Oh right, the Claudia incident. At around two-ish, everybody was called into the lunch room for a staff meeting. Apparently, Claudia had gotten herself another job. Get this, a head hunting company had approached HER about another job. It's good to be wanted I guess. I've never had anyone asking me if I wanted to work for them... Oh well. The rest of the crew seemed sad about it. I was busy thinking "mind the step when leaving. mind the step when leaving.". Seriously: I had met her once. Didn't really leave a lasting impression, no offence.

And then we get to the other trip. One trip there, one trip home, right? Well, when I was in Eslöv anyway, I wanted to check out Ö&B and ICA. If I'm going to work in Eslöv, I want to know what the stores have to offer, right? Ö&B had a big sign saying: don't come in here! Ok, ok, they specified it a bit more: nobody with a bagpack or a bag in the store. Makes sense. They wanted me to use the lockers... In my experience of late, lockers don't give your coin back. And I'm way to cheap to give money for such services. ICA was disappointing. I couldn't find what I was looking for. I found something I might want and saw the prices... Oh well, I bought some candy and left.

So I got on the platform to go home. It was 16.55. The train would arrive 16.58. Nice :). Now to pay for the ticket... Nowhere on the platform was there a machine to pay with JoJo. The train card machine was right there, but JoJo needs a special machine to operate it. Curses. I finally found the machine by walking down two flights of stairs, then up two flights of stairs into the waiting room. By the time I got my ticket, the train left... I checked the time table. At least I tried... Well, first time in Eslöv, give me a break. From what I could figure out, it would arrive an hour later... Upset and sad thoughts hit me. Then I found out ANOTHER train would stop in Lund and would arrive in only ten minutes. Eslöv and Lund are quite important cities, for train travel.

And then I got to Lund. The time was something like 17.23. I left the platform, and got onto another platform (two flights of stairs down, two flights of stairs up, normal procedure. except in Kävlinge, where it's three). So the next train was leaving at 17.53, in 30 minutes. To heck with that! I was hungry NOW! So I went to Burger King. Then I went home on the 18.17 train. Got home about 18.45.

So I left at 9 am and got home at about 7 pm... 10 hours? For FOUR hours of work? You know, when I left the cleaning detail last Thursday I said that I would undoubtedly miss it. I disliked the work, but somehow I would miss it... Now I know why. I used to leave home at 6 am and get back at 11.30. Five and a half hours makes sense to me... Ten does not.

Since I've kind of made it my motto lately (and this is my blog and I'll be as sarcastic as I darn well please): Thank goodness I went to the university for nine years!

PS. The three hour trip home will probably be shorter tomorrow. Well, I hope it will at least.

Two days ago, I cut and pasted in the top 25 movies of all time, according to IMDb's voters. Today I thought that I would do the same for the bottom end. There's just one problem... Oh, get on with it and paste stuff in? Ok, you asked for it (source: http://www.imdb.com/chart/bottom):

1.    1.4    Pocket Ninjas (1997)
2.    1.4    Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004)
3.    1.4    Daniel - Der Zauberer (2004)
4.    1.4    Night Train to Mundo Fine (1966)
5.    1.4    Monster a-Go Go (1965)
6.    1.5    The Starfighters (1964)
7.    1.5    Zaat (1975) 
8.    1.5    The Skydivers (1963) 
9.    1.5    Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966) 
10.    1.5    Ben & Arthur (2002)
11.    1.5    Five the Hard Way (1969)
12.    1.5    Ape (1976)
13.    1.6    The Hellcats (1967)
14.    1.6    The Final Sacrifice (1990)
15.    1.6    Fat Slags (2004)
16.    1.6    Track of the Moon Beast (1976) 
17.    1.6    R.O.T.O.R. (1989) 
18.    1.6    Dis - en historie om kjærlighet (1995) 
19.    1.6    Zombie Nation (2004)
20.    1.6    Outlaw of Gor (1989)
21.    1.6    Identity Crisis (1989)
22.    1.6    Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (1996)
23.    1.6    Pledge This! (2006)
24.    1.6    Disaster Movie (2008) 
25.    1.6    Hobgoblins (1988)

Well, the problem arises because in the last post, I highlighted three movies I hadn't seen. This time, I've only highlighted two. Does that mean that I've seen the rest? Nope. Those two movies are the only ones I've seen on that list. Manos: The Hands of Fate (for non-Spaniards: Hands: The Hands of Fate) I saw on Mystery Sciense Theater 3000. My brother was into that show in a big way (since he's more of a sci-fi nut than me). On the other hand, to keep the comparason with my brother alive for another sentence, I've seen Disaster Movie. He hasn't. Why did I see that movie? Wasn't it obvious from the start that it would be horrible?

Yes, it was obvious and yes it was horrible. I have this strange part of me that WANTS to see bad movies every now and then. This is to make sure that I like the good ones even better. Disaster Movie really is just as bad as you might expect. No plot, no coherent story line and the pop culture references will be forgotten in a few years. Although, since the pop culture depicted is American, I'm pretty certain that I didn't understand them now...

Since that problem exists, this is a rather redundant post. But in my mind, if I write about the best, I need to write about the worst as well. There is balance in the universe, you know? If there isn't, Darth Vader will return and kill all the Jedi! Oh, wait, we don't have any Jedi... Eh, in that case I guess I could've skipped this post.

Today's topic is "The best". I've written many times before about how some things that are considered the best really aren't, in my opinion. I've also discussed the word "best" and how it needs to be updated on a daily basis to be relevant. And thirdly: WHO is regarding something as the best?

Well, today I'm going to be unnice and steal a list. I'm stealing it from IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/chart/top). The idea is that the list is of the 250 best movies ever. In the view of users on IMDb. It comes as no surprise to me that The Dark Knight has a high score. New things are often regarded as the best ever, even if they only came out last year. Enough with the talking, let's start stealing stuff!

This is the top 25 movies on Tuesday the 27th, 9 pm, Central European Time:

1. 9.1 The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
2. 9.1 The Godfather (1972)
3. 9.0 The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4. 8.9 Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo. (1966)
5. 8.9 Pulp Fiction (1994)
6. 8.9 Schindler's List (1993)
7. 8.8 12 Angry Men (1957)
8. 8.8 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
9. 8.8 The Dark Knight (2008)
10. 8.8 Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
11. 8.8 Casablanca (1942)
12. 8.8 Shichinin no samurai (1954)
13. 8.8 Star Wars (1977)
14. 8.8 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
15. 8.7 Goodfellas (1990)
16. 8.7 Cidade de Deus (2002)
17. 8.7 Rear Window (1954)
18. 8.7 Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
19. 8.7 Fight Club (1999)
20. 8.7 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
21. 8.7 C'era una volta il West (1968)
22. 8.7 The Usual Suspects (1995)
23. 8.7 Psycho (1960)
24. 8.6 The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
25. 8.6 Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Ok, so I've seen 22 of these, pretty good, right? Please note: I'm not really that big a film snob. I like watching movies, but there is no way I would qualify as a movie critic really.

Of course, the most noteworthy are always the most interesting. I've already mentioned The Dark Knight. A bit over rated in my mind. I might have liked it better in a cinema instead of in front of a computer screen. Who knows. Two of the Lord of the Rings movies are in there, The Two Towers (2002) is on 33th place. My favourite movie is not there (drat). It's on place 26, scoring 8.6 The Matrix (1999). Same score as the ones above it though. Anyhow...

The three movies I haven't seen is one in Portuguese, one from 1950 and a spaghetti western. I didn't study any Roman languages back in high school (I did learn English pretty good though, and some German), so Cidade de Deus I haven't even heard of before. No offence to anyone, I just haven't. Sunset Blvd.? Sorry, haven't heard of that one either. I have seen a few black and white movies, I haven't avoided it for that reason. I just simply haven't heard about it. Which leaves us with Once upon a Time in the West (1968). Sergio Leone made a spaghetti western that I haven't seen? Hm... True, I'm not that much into westerns, but my dad was when I was growing up, how did that movie get missed? The other two might never be seen by me, but that one is ending up on my to do list.

The question remains: how accurate is that list? Do note that I didn't just write down which date I copied the list but also what time. Millions of people vote on IMDb. I've done one, I think. In my mind, the voting is so scewed, most of the time, that it doesn't deserve my time. Is the top score as scewed? Possibly. I can't really say that I disagree with any of them being that high up. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II might be the exception... From what I've learned recently though, the Godfather movies HAVE TO be seen more than once to really be understood. I've only seen them once each. That might be a reason why I don't rate them as highly as most people do...

Again: I'm not knowledgeable enough to rate movies. I have a fondness for being entertained rather than watching good acting. True, every now and then I watch movies without explosions, action, humor or sex scenes. Uh, actually, that's not that uncommon that I watch movies without those elements... How main stream am I, really? (retorical question, don't try to answer that)

I watched Inherit the Wind (1960) the other day. In the movie a fact is mentioned which I've heard and read before: the day of creation. Now, I have thought about it before, but I've never actually remembered it on the actual day. This year, I did.

Apparently the creation of ... well, everything, was done on October 23rd, 4004. There's even claims that it took place at 9 am. Someone actually took the time and patience to read the bible, backtrack all the numbers and figure out what date the world was created.

That guy's name was James Ussher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher). No, I will not read that page. It's long and all I wanted was his name.

So, with that out of the way:

Happy 6013th Birthday Earth!

PS. Fossil records dating back millions of years? Obviously fake. The evolution of species? Just a theory. Dinosaurs? Well, since we've found their bones they were real AND they were right next to the lions on Noah's Ark. This is all obvious, if you think about it.

I noticed something the other day. Yesterday in fact, but I forgot to write about it. The I in the headline does not mean me. Rather it means a part of my personality that have been rather dead for like two years now.

Back. Back. Back in time we go. Two years ago (give or take a month or two) I was unemployed and NOT interning. At that time, I was free 24 hours a day. I had all the time in the world! Now, I like movies. Therefore it will come as no surprise that I used to watch one movie a day. Some days three or four. That went away when I started interning... Work made me fall asleep when I got home and then when I got out of bed my attention spann was like five minutes long. It wasn't a very nice time for me, and it ended in a depression.

*checks it up, notices that the next statement will be faulty*

Well, I'm back! I now again watch a movie a day! I was going to say that I've been doing it since last Thursday, but since I wrote about it on my Livejournal, I now know that I watched that movie on the Wednesday and watched nothing on Thursday...

Ok, so this going back to the old me is only on it's fourth day, not it's fifth... Still: it's 6.45 pm and I am going to watch a movie in just a few minutes. Which means that the new thing keeps going for four days at least. Of course, me being me, there is a high enough probability that I will stop this eventually. Maybe not. We'll see what happens.

Just to clarify, these are the movies I've seen these last few days:

W: Bulletproof Monk. Guns. Wire Fu. Chow Yun-Fat. Popcorn movie.
F: Terminator: Salvation. Guns. Robots. A heck of a lot of CGI. Another popcorn movie.
S: 12 Angry Men. 12 men. One room. One and a half hour of dramatic dialog. A classic, recommended.
S: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Silly. Funny. Kevin Smith (Star Wars nut) duels Mark Hamill (of Star Wars fame) with light sabres. A good laugh.
M: Under Siege. Die Hard on a boat. Guns. Martial Arts. I need to buy more popcorn...

Hasta la baby pizza!
(messed up quotes: cannot be theft if I mess them up, right?)