Swecon 2004

Phew, that was one hectic weekend! Even though I wasn't THAT involved with all the happenings during the SweCon it still felt like it! When we dropped off Tim Russ & Co. at the airport we just breathed a sigh of relief - it was finally over! And ofcourse I have some pictures thanks to my good buddy Ricki! Head over to My Pictures and scroll down to SweCon 2004" I should be able to scan the signed pic with me and Tim Russ by tomorrow. Meanwhile, take a look at some new pictures I just added from my trip to Rome! And these pictures are taken by Ricki that was also "accidentally" in Rome at the time.

Swecon 2004

Now I actually have an excuse for not doing shit here on the site! For the past week I've done stuff perparing for the Swecon 2004 - the first swedish Star Trek convention with the first official Star Trek visit. Tim Russ, the guy who plays Tuvok on "Voyager" is in town for the convention which, to Star Trek in Sweden, is HUGE! And what do I do? Except for miscellanous stuff that I always do for Stockholm Trekkers I have been given the title "The Offical Driver of Swecon 2004". So yeap, I picked the guy, his girlfriend and her parents up at the airport and I'm driving him to and from the hotel, which is actually fun and a good chance to just chat about non-Star Trek stuff. And today I had to do something that was actually something alot of people think I can pull off easily - bodyguard duty. When we were going from the hotel, 4 hours after he'd been on an national radio show promoting it, he had some fans down in the lobby at the hotel so I had to muscle up a bit. Never thought I'd be the bastard that pushes people away that just wants an autograph but the dude made it really clear he didn't want to be bothered when he wasn't at the convention so if any of those people are reading this - sorry!

Not updating

Now I'm just totally forgetting about updating this place. Can't blame it on anything now, I haven't been that busy I've just forgotten to update... Oh well... I actually went to the movies a week back and saw "I, Robot". I was expecting a "no brains, muscle driven action packed but wanna be deep"-movies. And it almost delivered. It was a little bit deeper than I thought it was gonna be, but the logic didn't quite hold up. They had incorporated another rule by Asimov into the plot that was never explained, and the laws are built on the premise that a robot can't change or overrule them when they chose to, no matter how intelligent they are. That's why they are suppose to be "hardwired", as oppose to software that can be changed.

Doom 3

Now I have a perfectly good reason for not posting anything in a while I've been totally busy with work and playing Doom 3. Seriously, that game is dangerous for your health. Don't play it if you have a weak heart. And my computer is begging me for an upgrade, god knows how I'm suppose to afford that. But looking forward to another great weekend. I'm playing housesitter for four days, so it's just me, huge house, a cat and the weather which I'm hoping is gonna be all sunshine!

Too lazy

I wish I could say I've been too busy to update this place. But the fact is I'm just lazy... no, actually, quite the opposite, I've been possessed by some workout deamon. When the scale 114 during my latest physical I thought it was time to do something about it. So I started working our and after two weeks I actually bought a scale to see if there was any result... 117 kilos. That's what two weeks on sickleave with a busted ankle will do to you. Or did to me anyway. But right now I'm passing down to 114 again and I'm not planning to stop. Until I'm bored ...

What Have I Benn Doing The Past 14 Months?

I've finally updated this place with information about what I've really been doing for the past 14 months. If you'll go back through this years updates as well as last years you'll see I've inserted comments about when I've been were and added some comments I haven't been able to write earlier. And I've also updated My Trips with a complete listing of where I've been and all info you might wanna know. Enjoy! I know I did. The reason I haven't been able to post this earlier was security concerns. And mostly for me. Who knows what certain security agencies would do to get their hands on a guy with admin access to that network. But that's all over with now. My accound is disabled and all passwords have been changed so even if I could remember them it wouldn't help anyone. So I'm thinking it's safe to publish this now.

MPRC

Today I saw ANOTHER docu-movie, this time on the story about MPRC, led by Tipper Gore, to ban "unethical" music lyrics and make the music industry responsible for what they are putting out there. And Frank Zappa, Dee Snider and John Denver came to its defence that they are just overreacting. The music bizz won but had to start putting "Parental Advisory" labels on the most extreme albums. Like all of Eminem's. And along with that I also saw the "Bleeping Osbourne" weekend when MTV had so nicely replaced the the "fucks" and "bitches" with "beeps" and "mooos". And they even went to the extreme length of censuring every on-screen cigarette. I'm all for pbulishers and TV stations taking their responsibility, but really, is it the music, lyrics and words we should be censuring? Isn't it the image? What's more damaging, Ozzy saying "fuck" or Britney dancing around wearing 3 threads? Twisted Sister's song weren't violent or anything extreme, but their image sure was...

Hitler

Saw an interesting docu-movie today about the rise and rise of Adolf Hitler. Covered the years from when he was sent to jail right up the the start of WWII. I like to consider myself a history buff, especially WWII, but I didn't really know that much about this part of Hitler's life. First of all, one has to assume there are some made up stuff in a movie to increase the dramatic part of it, but this one was pretty seriously made. And there were some frightening stuff in there and afterwards it was pretty weird to think of the old saying "history has a tendancy to repeat itself". To be brief about it ; the guy went from being in jail to being the leader of a superpower using loopholes in their constitution and used the arson against the german government building to push through some radic laws temporarily superceding human and civil rights which made him in charge of basically everything and then went to war. In short! Let's think a little bit bigger. Do we have someone in charge of a superpower right now, with a criminal past, that used constitutional loopholes to gain power and then used an attack against them to push through some laws superceding human and civil rights and then went to war?... hehehe, frightening stuff... Big difference is ofcourse Adolf was a smart asshole. Bush is just an asshole. Another huge difference is that Bush has to face a re-election. Adolf was smart enough to get out of that.

Music

Isn't music amazing? I don't know any other medium that can give you that kind of emotional responses or bring back memories like music can. I mean, who can hear a song like "Total Eclips of the Heart" without being effected in somehow, and who can help but to sing along to "Tubthumping". Or help getting goose bumps when Moby's "Everloving" kicks off? And there are songs that you just immediately connect to specific events. I heard Spin Doctors' "Two Princes" the other day which brought me back to summer of -92 and me kicking back at the finishing line at the annual school run. I never ran since I had asthma so I was just sitting there enjoying the summer which pissed off everyone of my classmates. That why I love music.

Have I seen too many movies if the only way I can rate movies is by referring to other movies?

More movies

I really should stop watching this many movies, it can't be healthy. Today it was "Shrek 2" and "13 Going on 30"... "Shrek 2" proved the statement made in "Scream 2" - sequals suck. Ok, it didn't suck, but it wasn't as fun or original as ... the original. Biggest laugh was in the end when pussycat does the flashdance move, hilarious!! "13 Going on 30" was a little bit silly, felt like someone saw "Big" and then "Freaky Friday" during an "Alias"-marathon and brainstormed this one up in 5 minutes. Highlight was the retro scenes with the "Thriller"-dance. But the best rip-off of that dance was "Final Fantasy"...

Have I seen too many movies if the only way I can rate movies is by referring to other movies?

Where did I go to?

Dude, have the past two week been the laziest of my life? I would think so! Especially the weekends - last weekend I was so bored I actually had to go an extra mile to find something to do. Don't know when was the last time that happened. And this weekend has been "movie-catchup" weekend. "Troy", "Girl Next Door", "Timeline", "Hellboy", "Punisher", "Godsend" and "Elf". Puh... most of them were disappointing ("Timeline" was soooo bad, and I usually like time travel stories), some just what I expected ("Troy" made up and bended Homer's work about as much as I'd expect) and some were even better than I thought ("Girl Next Door" was funnier and more serious than I though). And another Ferrari victory. A pretty successful weekend all in all. Looking forward to this working week when my future area of expertice will be decided.

NP.com

Alot happening on the natalieportman.com side of my life (changin servers) but not alot else happening. Enjoying the summer and being in sweden and actually getting my life back together. This site may go down and up over the next few days because I'm changing stuff but that should only be temporary. Don't worry - I'm a professional... "a professional what?"..

Euro2004

As usual I'm not nationalistic or patriotic in any way, but when big championship comes along that changes. All yellow and blue! And today was the big day for swedish soccer in the Euro2004. Versus Italy. Noone expected it to be much of a match, but hell it turned out to be the best one yet. And Zlatans equalizer... guess I can't say "he's not that good, he's just hyped up by the media" because that was a helluva goal. Or to quote Irene Cara - "oh what a feeling!".

Not 20 anymore

I'm so not 20 anymore! Picture this - I limp back to the hospital to return the crotches and decided to donate blood. After that you get iron supplement pills. The day after I go out having a couple of beers (more like a dozen) with some friends and wake up today TOTALLED. With lack of blood and the mess in the stomach that iron supplement causes, added with alcohol and OUCH today is not a good day to do anything at all.

Physical

As I mentioned in yesterdays update I did my annual physical in may and last friday me and the doc went through the results. I was expecting her to say stuff like "you REALLY need to cut down on the fat, lose some wight and start excercising". Which she kinda did. She said "you really need to cut down on the bad fat like fast food, chips and candy and get more good fat like olive oil. And it wouldn't hurt to lose a few pounds". As if I didn't know that last part! In christmas of 2002 when I hit 110 kilos I got an excercise bike from my parents. And yes, it was on my short "all I want for christmas"-list. And I actually used it alot and was down to 104 when I started travelling and stuff and didn't have time for it. So now I'm up to 112 kilos. And since I'm not gonna be travelling anytime soon I can't use that as an excuse.

Too bad I busted my ankle :)

Donating blood

Today I did something I haven't done in over a year. Donated blood. I haven't been allowed to do that since I've been to "malaria infected countries" which results in a 6 month ban from giving blood. And obviously they have read my entry about me not being able to donate blood at Huddinge hospital, because now I can. Unfortunately, their computer systems aren't connected to the ones at the donor place I used to go to so I had to fill out all the forms and take new blood tests to ensure that my blood is clean. They didn't trust me when I said I had my blood tested twice in may -03 (blood donation & pre-vaccination), august  -03  (pre-vaccination), twice in november -03 (once for malaria and once in nigeria), december -03 (trying to diagnose salmonella), january -04 (pre-vaccination), may -04 (annual physical) and once just two weeks before when I busted my ankle (still don't know what one has to do with the other!). I had to take one more blood test to be sure. So I've REALLY made up for never having my blood tested before that and now I'm so positive and reassured I've got no bad things in my veins.

Sick leave

You'd think that when I'm on sick leave I'd have some time to update this site with more updates and stuff... yeah, you'd think! But I've had stuff to keep me busy all the way which makes me kinda worried what it'll be like when I actually go back to work next wednesday. But then I won't have weeks of Star Trek to catch up on or a Dead Zone DVD box to watch. Or this good weather!

Day After Tomorrow

Saw "Day after Tomorrow" today (thanks sis!). Liked it. Alot. I've always liked catastrophe movies. And I always like US of A getting their asses kicked in movies. And I've always liked Dennis Quaid ever since "Innerspace". And I've always liked Sela Ward. But there was just one minor teeeeeeny little detail that got me upset - again they portray the US president as a nice, decent and righteous dude.
[Stop readin now if you don't wanna be spoiled about the movie!] The role of the asshole is the VICE president who later in the movie becomes the president and all of a sudden he becomes a good guy. So vice presidents can be assholes but not presidents? Why? When we all know that it's George-boy we're talking about and bashing, why not go all the way? Little disappointed over that.

In Sweden

You know how "they" say that your health takes a dramatic turn for the worse when you hit 30? I've heard that it just get's worse and you have a much easier time getting sick? I guess I'm a little bit ahead of schedule. Cause one year ago I had never been on sick leave (not once!) and had never been to the hospital since my little operation when I was a kid. I was going on almost 20 years without going to the hospital (and no, visiting someone else doesn't matter). But then BAM, 3 times in 2 weeks in november and now once more unto the breach! Got off the Arlanda-parking buss and my foot just gave away. I guess there was some rock or there that just made my foot go all wrong, but that doesn't matter cause the result was the same - busted ankle. So now I've been to the hospital for x-rays (rather that than limping for the rest of my life) and been on sick leave twice - in the past 6 months alone. And I turned 29 yesterday so it must be that. Or bad luck.

In Hague, Holland

Oh no, it's that time again. That time of the year that you're reminded of just how fast time flies. Which I guess is a good thing since that usually means you're having fun. Which I totally am. But I don't want another birthday. Thank god I'm out of the country...AGAIN!

Unfortunately this is the last trip I'll ever do for this government project. I've done my 15 or so embassies, and we were 7 techies so that about covers them all. :(