Too Much Going On

There was a time when I updated this place almost every day and didn't care about what I wrote or who read it, but alot of things have happened in the past 4 weeks that doesn't really belong here. But things are going on, some of it really, really good and some of it pretty bad. I'll be happy if we can land on "ok" in time for Christmas :)

Another good thing comes to an end

So you know I'm a member of a really, really old gaming guild in sweden called "Soul Crushers"? We've been active since the quake days, going through other games, new members, old members disappearing but the "Soul Crusher" motto of always having fun still lives on! One of them is an "underground" bar in the center of stockholm that we've hung out at. And tonigh is the last night there 'cause after that they're closing the doors. So bittersweet when that happens... But any excuse for a party :)

Environmental problems. Really?

For the past 2 weeks all the papers in sweden has been all about the environmental problems we're having. As if it's something new. Hasn't that always been an issue for the past 30 years or so? All I can say is that I'm happy I haven't put a child to this world. I'd have to apologize the him/her for screwing up the planet. But then again, I think I've done my part. I commute to work by train, my apartment is always cold (ask my friends) and dark and I voted for the treehuggers. And I'm donating money to Greenpeace. But still they make us feel guilty. I miss being a kid when you didn't have to feel bad for things like this.

Snowy Surprise

So after a week of hearing experts (and Greenpeace) coming up with doomsday scenarios of the global warming the meterologists here told everyone to change to winter tyres because there was a bit of bad weather headed our way. The said that during the weekend. And yesterday (wednesday) a snowstorm hit like a ton of bricks! Chaos everywhere, trains, planes, highways. And guess where I was? I was feeling terrrible and had a fever so I never even got out of bed which turned out to be the total right choice since I hear it took some people hours to get home yesterday! So not only do people forget that we get snow every year in sweden, they don't care when the weatherman warns about it 3 days before it hits.

The games people play

The last 4 weeks have been funny, weird, sad, depressing and annoying. Alot of different states of mind for one major reason. This woman at work that I considered a friend but got pissed off at me for wanting to talk about her being unhappy at work. Anyway, after her huge dissing of me she ended with "I don't wanna talk to you anymore". So for the past 4 weeks everytime she's wanted computer help she's called my collegues directly, not the helpdesk number since she knows it's a good chance I'll answer. And she's kept check of when I work late so she doesn't call at all. And she's totally avoided this part of the building. And I've returned the favor by avoiding her part of the building, not taking on any cases that's remotely close and for her last few days here I even made sure I wasn't here by going to Gothenburg and working there for a few days. Had I been here and she's come by handing in her laptop and to say goodbye I'm sure I'd said "sorry to see you go, good luck there and good luck with everything, have fun", but that'd been a lie. I actually don't... I really dislike her after all of this and if it wasn't against my life philosophy, I might even go as far as hating her for it. But oh well, now she's out of here and I can go back to normal work again. But atleast I managed not to talk to her for 4 weeks.

So that's one problem eliminated. My second problem I solved with alot of overtimes and all my credit that I still had on some cards after my year of travelling and paying hotell bills for $2500 all the time, so the other day I paid $2000 to the IRS. I can't really complain seeing as I spent over a year travelling the world on the taxpayers expense.

Ups and downs

Last weekend I came down with the cold from hell. And it's finally starting to go away. It was so bad I had to take prescription painkillers to make it down to Gothenburg since I was suppose to do some work down there, but when that was done I called in sick for the rest of the week. And now I'm back in Gothenburg again. Never been a big fan of this town but after beeing here a few days I guess it's ok. The beer tastes just as good anyway. But it's too grey for my liking!

Oh The Irony ...

As usual after donating a pint of blood I feel good. Not sure if it's a mental feel good about doing something good or a physical thing, but I generally feel good afterwards. And the other day I was surprised at just how well I felt - I didn't have an ache anywhere. No sore back, no headache, nothing. That was nice.

Unfortunately it didn't last - yesterday I woke up and my throat felt like I'd swallowed fire. No problem with that, I just have to refrain from talking. But later in the afternoon the fever came and man what a fever. Eventually I had to resort to taking prescription painkiller to get over it and went to bed at 8! And today I feel a bit better but tomorrow morning at 5 I have to get up and go to gothenburg. Last time I felt "bad but not bad enough to go to the hospital" and had to get up early the next day to travel somewhere I ended up in an african hospital convinced I wasn't gonna make it back.

Lost Half A Kilo Today

SInce I'm working late this week I have time in the morning to do all the chores I usually don't have time for. And today it was time for me to donate blood again. For the 9th time. Everytime I've donated blood (except the first ofc) they've always commented on the blood test from the previous one and they keep telling me what a good cell counts and stuff I have. At first I just thought they do that to be nice, kind and get you in a better mood. But now I know they are! Because this time she said that my last blood test was absolutely excellent and she had never seen that good results and I must be healthy and eat well and get plenty of exercise. Last time I donated was when I had 3 weeks vacation from work and all I did was play computer games and lie in front of the TV, drinking cola, beer and chips all day long...

Oh what problems

The other day as I was flipping through channels I ended up on the "Actor's Studio". It's one of those "let's talk to famous people in movie bizz and see what they have to say" programs, but it's actually usually quite good and some of them have things to say. And this time it was Michael J. Fox doing his best to try to sit there and talk about his career and Parkinsons. I particularly liked his attitude that "hey, everyone has their problems and issues, but they've learnt to deal with them and wouldn't trade them for anyone elses" and how much a terrible thing like this was a "gift that kept on taking" in that it had helped him live life and appreciate everything.

And here I am with my biggest problems being a woman at work that don't like me and owing the IRS $2000. Problem one is gonna solve itself since she's decided to leave the company (which was what I tried talking to her about) and problem two is gonna be solved - somehow...

You win some you lose some

After this disaster with the woman at work I really needed some cheering up and fate deliverd! We were having a conference/kick-off for everyine in the IT departments of all offices and we had some of these abstract project of how to improve our routines and the way we work. You know how I feel about abstract shit like that, and it's not like we're stressed out. And one of the consultants that was gonna start a speech opened up by asking "which one of you is Kristoffer?", and I'm like "shit what did I do now" and then he says "my girlfriend anna says hi". Anna is a childhood friend of mine, my parents and hers have been really tight. But when we hit our 20's we kinda lost touch with each other. I haven't seen her in ages and haven't even spoken to her in over a year. But now she has my number and we will certainly meet up and catch up!

Now I don't know how I feel anymore...

On monday I was very bummed out over her reaction and giving me more shit than I've taken from even my ex girlfriends and yesterday I was pretty depressed too. But now I'm more on the "angry and disappointed" side of things. I've gone through the entire thing a gazillion times and I still don't know where I went wrong. She was the one that opened the door to her private life, she was the one calling me and talking about stuff (ok, granted I do work in the helpdesk so ofcourse  she's doing the calling). The only thing I may have missed was that she wanted to close that door, never picked up any vibes like that but that's apparently the case. So for now I'm writing this off as misunderstanding and going with another classic quote from Dante - "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"...

And then I went down to one of our newest lawyers and after clearing up her mailproblems quietly said to myself "women are still the most amazing thing in the world!"...

And now I'm totally depressed!

Remember a few months ago when I mentioned I had gotten into a moral dilemma - I had, through no fault of my own, gotten information about someone I care about not being that happy where she is. I eventually decided that if she wants to talk about it I'll let her, but I won't bring it up.

And last week it happened again - I accidentally saw a private message to her that kinda hinted that she was now really, really depressed at work and was even considering applying for a new job. Same moral dilemma, but with one difference - her boyfriend is overseas for a year. So I offered my shoulder to cry on, and thereby admitting I had seeen this... and she freaked. I mean _freaked_! Not only was she pissed off at the fact that I knew this but also because this was none of my business. Under normal circumstances she'd be right... but in this case she was the one that opened up her private life to me when she was heartbroken when her ex had cheated on her and the hell she was going through. Back then I offered my shoulder to cry on and that worked out well because 2 months later they were back together. But this time she went ballistic and the only thing I see I did wrong here was that I cared. Even efter she said no to going out with me and even after they got back together I still cared. It even got so bad she told me never to talk to her again, which makes it really hard to explain myself.

Which only proves an old saying - nice guys do finish last. Maybe if I wasn't such a nice guy, maybe if I had cheated on her and moved overseas for my careers sake, maybe then I'd be the kinda guy that gets a woman like that.

This is enough to make me depressed for a very very long time. I just hope it blows over, but I seriously doubt it..

I Don't Want Your Newspaper

You know what's really starting to bug me - the people standing at the exits of the trainstations trying to give you a magazine (in stockholm it's Metro or City). I mean if they were just there trying to give it to you that's one thing but they've gotten more and more agressive. And one or two wouldn't be bad but I pass 6-7 or sometimes 9 of these on my way to work every morning. And the most annoying thing is... I've already read it on the train!! I'm gonna go ahead and get some t-shirts printed up with a "I don't want your Metro or City!" and give away on the trains...

Things are good when that's the extent of your problems...

Election Time Again

So today it was election in sweden. Again. For the past elections I haven't really known what to vote for, and me almost being unemployed last year with all the emotional stress that causes it was even harder this year. It seems that if you have a job and everything is ok, then blue is the way to go. But if you're knocked down for some reason, the reds are good...

So I ended up voting for the tree-huggers...

The Eleventh Again?

On monday it was september 11th again. I almost missed it had it not been for every media pointing it out. If you look at it objectively there's no real reason why the entire world should feel so much about an event like that. But somehow we do. On CNN they had a brutal special feature - you could download 2 hour CNN coverage from 8:50 to 10:50 "as it happened". That was scary!!

And the day after, what does TV4 do? Show "Airplane" with the wonderful line "They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting themselves into!"... nice timing...

True Story!

Yesterday I had decided to buy a new cell phone. I did my homework and decided to buy a Ericsson Z550i. I checked up where I could buy them pretty cheap and also had them in stock NOW! ANd that was Elgiganten, one of our biggest electonics warehouses. When I got there they didn't have any in the display shelf so I had to take a number for the information desk dealing with phones. After waiting 15 minutes it was my turn and the guy told me "they are so new we don't have them on display yet!", then he punched in some stuff on the computer and gave me a postit with a number on it. "Go to the cashier and give her this number". Ok, so I did, and you guessed it - take a number. After only 10 minutes of waiting it was my turn, gave her the note, she punched the computer a bit, charged my credit card and gave me a receipt and said "ok, go over there, that's where they have the actual product!". So I went over there and... yeap, take a number. 15 minuters after that I had my phone.
Should it really take 45 minute to go to a huge store like this to buy a phone when you know exactly what phone you want and you know they have it in stock?... or am I just a bit too much of a perfectionist for this?

Btw, tribute to Steve Irwin.

No More "Crikey"?

Came to work and hit the favorite icon for CNN and look at that, Steve Irwin killed in action. I think that's a big loss to the world actually, you may dislike his way of presenting his shows but he certainly made alot of people (especially kids) watch nature shows with a bit of interest. Really sad to hear that and I wasn't even a big fan...

Election Year... Really?

Apparently it's election year this year. I'd almost missed it, cause I'm used to it being 10 times more obvious and more posters and stuff everywhere you go and everything you read, but it's been pretty slow so far this year. But the ones who I think have the best ones yet is our environmental party. Their entire PR campaign is just irony and sarcasm. "Nudles are still cheap, so we don't need to raise the financial support for students", "I'm not hooked on oil, I can quit whenever I want", "All love is good - as long as they don't wanna get married!" and then there's one regarding our policy with refugees but that's lost in the translation I'm afraid...

No More Cells On The Train

Interesting thing happened the other day as I was going home on the train. My cell phone rang and as usual I answer since I'm on call and have to answer. And as I'm explaining to this clueless lawyer how to install a new printer a guy comes up to me and asks me to hang up. Why? Becuase there's a ban on cell phones on commuting trains now - apparently? I had no idea they did that, but I politely informed him that these things are in the same category as "give up your seat to an elderly so they don't have to stand", it's more of a recommendation & courtesy than actually being illegal. He didn't like that but couldn't argue and left me alone. And the guy was sitting like 10 meters away from me so don't know how me talking on the cell annoyed him...

But generally I agree - sitting next to someone who's talking on the phone with their friend talking about stuff I have no interest what so ever about is damn annoying...

Too Funny To Ignore

I went to the shop to re-stock some stuff after a week in scotland and one of the things I had to buy was shower gel. And I saw Axe has a new (for me anyway!) shower gel out there called anti-hangover with the slogan "Brings you back to life - no matter how short the night was". So I just had to buy it, can't wait to try it :)