Early Xmas? or the hard life of a webmaster...

Hello again,
Not that much of raves and rantings this time. More of an "early Xmas presents" type of thing really. Well, The last couple of weeks has been really hectic on my part... not that I'm complaining though.

A somewhat wet webmaster. In search of sea serpents?

I've been working real hard on The Patrik Pages on what will be a new look as soon as I'm done There's also been some discussions, prototyping etc. of a new site which will be a collaboration by unexplained.cjb.net and The Patrik Pages. And of course on top of this I work and go to school.
Last weekend the lady of the house and myself left for a trip to Norway to visit her mother. We started out early on Friday and at the same time it looked like winter had decided to arrive. The initial rain soon turned into snow, the roads froze and together with the heavy traffic this made the journey rather tiresome. Got back home on late Sunday (less traffic and no snow this time, fortunately). Next day was workday for Lis and school followed by a nights work for me. Tuesday - same as Monday. I didn't really get much sleep during these two days so I was really exhausted on Wednesday morning when I got off from work. Had a few hours of rest (not sleep!) before it was off to diving class. Lis' boss is a diver and she had invited her employees and their husbands / wives / whatever to a free evening of diving. After a security briefing ,some theory and finding fitting equipment it was off to the water. An indoor pool - it was snowing again. It was great fun and I suppose it would have been even more so had I got a mask which fitted my face. After about two hours under water with a leaking mask I was freezing and my head felt like it was filled with water. I was stuck with the smell of chlorine in my nose for three days.

The Patrik Pages office building ;-)

Thursday I had school again and then it was off to a premiere. This guy at a local TV station had given Lis and me tickets to a preview of The Haunting. This guy is always complaining of all the champagne and free food he has to drink and eat at all these previews, so I was somewhat disappointed when nothing of the kind was offered. I always did suspect he exaggerated his own importance and lifestyle, but hey - it was nice to give us tickets! Since Lis had already seen it a couple of months ago at a convention (she's in the movie business) I brought a friend along. The screening was at eleven thirty at night the day before the official opening day, and this timing was pretty neat since it made the hauntings in the movie start at twelve, which You all know is the official haunting hour. I don't know weather this was intentional or not but it sort of makes better sense watching ghost movies at night. Friday I should have slept, but it was up with the sun and off to a meeting with our landlord. But after striking a deal with him I actually fell asleep in front of my computer. Head on the keyboard and everything.

A webmaster with a horrormaster...

Saturday was Xmas day - well not really, but it was to me! Lis had gotten us invitations to another movie preview. This time in Stockholm so we got up at five in the morning and left for the four hour drive together with a friend and his wife. Then it was an hour of cruising trying to find somewhere to park the car and finally running all the way to the theater. We made it just on time and it sure was worth it. This preview was purely for people in the movie business, but Lis knew I had probably died if I hadn't been able to attend. The movie was Italian director Dario Argento's Phantom Of The Opera starring his daughter Asia and Julian Sands. Dario Argento is the most censored director in the world. Sure there are films more severely cut than his, but every film he's ever done has been slaughtered - sometimes to the point where You can't follow the story anymore. In some countries of the world, like Finland, the censors doesn't even cut his films but just outlaws them straight away. But due to brand new censorship laws in Sweden all films can now be released uncut and instead of prerelease cutting someone has to file a complaint against the film before the censors will touch it. So it was sort of an historic event - the world premiere of an uncut Argento movie (almost anyway since they actually had shown the film the night before at the Stockholm Film Festival).
Apart from us the audience consisted of people from the movie industry, reviewers, an Italian film crew and Mr. Argento himself...
Before they rolled the movie he went on stage for a speech, mainly about the production of the film, but he also suggested film censors should be put in jail for a week (or two or three) for their crimes against humanity, fantasy and film making He also expressed his love for Sweden for being the first country in the world allowing audiences to watch his films the way they were intended. The Phantom of The Opera wasn't as good as some of his earlier films but it still was great. It stayed pretty close to the original story, and didn't really have that much gore in it. I did get quite a few good laughs though, and I think this is one of the reasons why I like his movies so much: the dark bizarre comedy spicing his films without removing the horror element.
After the movie there was beer and sandwiches and we also got a chance to chat with Mr. Argento. Lis kept telling me to ask him what it felt like shooting those rather explicit erotic scenes of his daughter. Girls - aren't they weird? (and that's pretty close to his comment).
Anyway, I've been a big fan of Dario Argento's ever since I first saw Suspiria years ago, and after meeting him in person I'd say he isn't just my favorite director but also one of the nicest and friendliest. Not that I've actually met that many, but even so.

Sunday I woke up with the flu, which was quite a relief actually. I had felt totally exhausted the entire week, but I thought it was due to sleep depravation and my tight schedule. It's a dark and dirty job - but somebody has to do it!!.

Previous Rants & Raves:
• Getting stinking RICH on the Net and other weirdness...
• Excuses, Excuses, Excuses...
• Stepping On Peoples Toes...