And so, 2024 has ended and 2025 begins.
Let us hope that this year perhaps turns out better, despite everything that's been happening.
So, Happy New Year!

Once again it is Christmas Eve.

Me and dad were originally gonna be going to my sister and her family's place today, but I got problems with my stomach and instead they came over to our place.

We had a really nice evening with Christmas gift exchanging and dinner.

I got a few gifts, those being Spider-Man 2 on the PS5, a rather neat little cat statue for the desk in my bedroom as well as a book on the history of arcades here in Sweden and a trivia card game with 100 questions about video games, really nice gifts overall.

Saw what happened over in the US in regards to the election results and I'm honestly terrified in regards to what might lie ahead for the world.
I had hoped that there would be enough sensible people left in the US to make sure this wouldn't happen again, but that was not the case....
I hope we can make it through this....

So, yeah, as the title of the journal entry says, it is my 35th birthday.
My sister and her family were supposed to have visited today, but she and one of their kids have gotten sick, so they weren't able to come, but that's how things are.
Just gonna take it easy today.

Learned earlier today that Dragoneer, one of the people who founded Furaffinity, has passed away after having just undergone a biopsy, he had been tweeting a lot lately about how he's been pushed around by doctors and such with delays and more as he was really ill...
I extend my condolences to his family and friends, we are all deeply saddened by his passing and he will be missed by us all.

Right, I'm gonna need to vent for a bit here regarding a lot of crap I and many others have been seeing on Deviantart and other websites, that being A/I generated images.
The websites are getting absolutely flooded by these images, with some profiles having several thousands of these in their galleries, and I absolutely HATE it.
You can't do searches on anything these days without getting results that put these A/I generated images as the top results, which is extremely detrimental for actual artists that are trying to find references for something they're planning on drawing, not to mention the fact that these images look so generic, they all look the same and pretty much all the time have glaring issues such as weird limbs, eyes and more.
Then there's also the fact that there are those who take money for this kind of nonsense, which is just bloody appalling in my opinion as those images were done by an algorithm and not an actual person.
This isn't art at all in my opinion, actual artwork is something that takes time to do along with what I mentioned above that it's done by an actual person and it's very often about the journey for many of these actual artists as they develop their skills and find a unique style for their art.
It has gotten way too out of hand now with this rubbish, especially after Deviantart has basically openly advertised A/I generated images, which goes against in my opinion what the website is supposed to be about.
I'm honestly just so bloody sick of this nonsense....

And so 2023 has come to an end, happy new year!
Let's hope this one will be better.

Good grief, this year sure flew by quickly, didn't it?
Haven't happened much today during Christmas Eve for me, just been at home and taking it easy, no Christmas gifts yet.
But otherwise it hasn't been too bad.

And so it was time for my birthday again, took it easy today, gonna be some celebrations tomorrow, so that'll be nice.

2022 sure flew by quickly, but it was certainly a strange one while it lasted as well as an honestly terrifying one with what's going on in Ukraine.
Here's hoping that 2023 might be the turning point with things getting better from here on out.
But happy new year anyway!

And so it has been Christmas Eve once more.
Bit of an odd one this year as we were originally supposed to go and visit my sister and her family, but we had to cancel it because of illness.
But it has otherwise been fairly nice so far.

And so it is my 33rd birthday today, it has been a fairly pleasant one.
Me, my dad as well as my sister and her family went to a local zoo and it was quite nice there.
Although when me and dad had just bought our tickets to get inside and meet my sister and the others inside the zoo, it began to rain quite heavily as well as the wind picking up, it took a bit for it to calm down, but it had gotten fairly cold at that point, so it wasn't very pleasant.
But it was still a nice time there despite all that.
And later we went to one of my sister and her family's places to have dinner, it was a nice evening and I got some nice gifts too.

So its now been about two months since this dreadful war began in Ukraine.
I, like a lot of other people, have been following this whole thing with worry, especially regarding Russia's increased aggressive behavior towards us here in Sweden and our neighbors over in Finland due to us getting more and more serious about joining NATO, which is looking extremely likely now with what's been revealed to news outlets lately because of the threats directed at us.
This whole thing is just horrific, especially with what's been uncovered in the areas that were liberated by the Ukrainian army, it's nothing but pure evil with what's been happening to the people down there.
I sincerely hope that this whole thing ends soon with Ukraine winning and no escalation to a possible third World War.

So it has gone and happened, Russia has invaded Ukraine and they're threatening NATO as well as any other country with "severe consequences" if they "interfere", which many are interpreting as nuclear strikes.
I am honestly very VERY terrified right now with all this and the Swedish army are in a higher state of readiness now due to all this, they're dispatching more planes across the country to reinforce our defenses.
These are dark times we live in now, folks...

Bit surprisingly, I wasn't ill with Covid for very long, two days or so after I wrote that journal entry earlier.
We think it might have to do with the fact that I got my booster shot last month, which allowed my immune system to fight back a lot more effectively against the Omicron variant of Covid me and my dad caught, he has also recovered from it.
But now we gotta be extra careful, since Omicron has a very high chance of reinfecting someone and the second time will bypass any antibodies your body has formed from previous infections along with the vaccine.
I would strongly urge people to go out and get vaccinated, the vaccines DO actually work against Covid, even Omicron, especially with how it significantly reduces the chances of you catching long-term Covid effects like the loss of smell and taste as well as chronic pain and all the other effects that we know of along with also reducing the chances of you getting ill, just remember that it doesn't make you immune to the virus.
We still need to observe social distancing along with the fact that we really should continue to wear facemasks while out in public, since they also help to protect us from the virus along with any other infections out there.

Well, I've gotten infected with Covid-19.
It began the night to Monday with me having a sore throat and then it got worse towards the end of that day as I began having a fever and then threw up during the night.
The entire day has been hellish with almost nonstop vomiting.
Really hope this passes by quickly.

As the title of the journal says, I got my booster shot with the Pfizer vaccine today.
It feels good to have gotten it done, since it does help to significantly lower the chances of you getting seriously ill from Covid-19.

Well, I'm not having a really good start to the new year here.
Woke up with my bowels not in the best of moods and then when it was time for breakfast, I couldn't eat anything as I had to go and throw up.
The day before, as in New Years Eve, me and my dad were visiting my sister and her family for a bit of late Christmas gift exchange before the new year begins, they gifted me a Google Home setup by the way.
I also ate some food they had prepared for me, but we're now worried that there might have been something wrong with the food considering how I'm feeling today, IE maybe food poisoning.
So, yeah, this has not been a good way to start off 2022.
Update:
Dad called my sister yesterday and as it turns out, she's also caught whatever it is that I have too.
Thing is though that we didn't eat the same food, so food poisoning is ruled out now, instead we think it might be the home care service we employ that might have brought something with one of their staff despite their best precautions.
Still not a good start to 2022 anyways, I hope it isn't indicating what the rest of the year will be like.

And so it is Christmas Eve once again, so Merry Christmas!
It has been a very unusual year to put it lightly for me and my family.
Also, me and my dad were supposed to go and visit my sister and her family today, but the roads are not safe due to ice and such so we had to postpone this until further notice, so no gift exchanges either.
Ah well, not much you can do when it comes to the weather, really.

Well, this year certainly flew by quickly and its already my birthday now. XP
Felt like we only just barely started 2021 and now we're already near the end of it with this today and Christmas coming soon.

Like the title of the journal says, I've gotten my second shot of the Pfizer vaccine today .
Feels really good to have gotten that done.

I just wanna first start off this journal entry with a thank you to all those who have expressed their condolences in the previous one, things are still surreal and we're trying to come to grips with this.
But anyways, as the title of the journal entry says, I've gotten my first dose of the vaccine today, the Pfizer one.
So far I have not experienced any side effects, although the nurse asked us to wait in the clinic's waiting room for about half an hour afterwards to make sure I didn't have an allergic reaction to the vaccine as its still quite new and all that, but I was fine after half an hour, so we went home.
Probably gonna feel some of the side effects tomorrow, since that's when a lot of people say it hits, but that just means its working as intended.

We've had something horrible happen today, my mom has passed away.
She had been hospitalized for about 5 weeks for several medical issues she had been having and we, as did her, thought that this would help her.
But on Sunday, dad got a phone call from the hospital that her condition had gotten worse all of a sudden and he along with my sister and their youngest son went in to see her while her husband, their other son and their two dogs stayed at our home to make sure I was okay.
They said that she was having a hard time speaking with them when they were there to see her and later in the night, dad got another phone call from the hospital that she's even worse now.
So we along with my sister, he had called her to inform her of this latest development, went to the hospital.
She wasn't responding to us talking to her or when we held her hand, but we were there for the night, I had to go back home as I wasn't in a good state myself.
Later that day, we got the phone call that we dreaded would come, she had passed away.
So, yet again me, my dad and my sister went in to say our good byes to her and it was really rough, none of us were really prepared for this.
Not gonna be easy with the days ahead now.

And so we've now finally the year of 2021.
I'm just glad that 2020 is over as, which many will agree on, was an overall terrible year with everything that happened, in particular in the early days of that year.
And there have been some fairly bad things for me personally this year, but I hope that 2021 will be a much better one for not only me, but everyone else too.

Well, here we are again with yet another Christmas Eve, except its a whole lot different for pretty much everyone across the globe due to the virus that's shook it all up quite considerably.
Me and my family have been able to celebrate it quite normally, as we've actually stayed at home and only gone somewhere when it was absolutely necessary, as a lot of other people should have, but anyways we have been able to avoid the virus by minimizing contact with as many people as possible, my sister and her family were able to come over today as they also did the same as we did avoiding any unnecessary trips and contacts with other people.
So Christmas Eve today has been quite nice, I handed out some really lovely gifts to my parents as well as to my sister, her husband and their kids.
As for me, I got some nice gifts too:

Yakuza: Like A Dragon and Spider-Man: Miles Morales for the PS4.
A USB charged mini vacuum cleaner that you can use for cleaning out your keyboard, desktop and pet beds among other things.
A container of a kind of slime that you use for cleaning out keyboards by just pressing it against the keyboard, it absorbs the dust and other trash that's gotten underneath.
A very lovely little Christmas decoration that lights up when connected to an outlet.
A book written by Sir David Attenborough called A Life on Our Planet.
6 issues of a Swedish military magazine called Militär Historia, gonna be interesting reading these once they arrive in the mail.
A brand new bike helmet for when me and my dad go out on little trips in the local area, as I've been for years using this really old helmet whenever we're out
and about on a short bike in the area and it was getting really worn out.
A Sodastream machine with two flavour bottles, which is a carbonator for making your own sparkling waters drinks, the flavour bottles I got were Pepsi and Fanta.
As well as a package of Björn Borg underpants.

So, yeah, it has been a really good Christmas Eve and I hope everyone else is having a good one too.