Finally!

And so it finally happened. I got an extension on my contract at the lawfirm which means I'm legally employed here until I screw up bad enough to get fired. At first I was employed on a quarterly basis, but then they decided to extend it to the end of the year and now I can finally rest my worried little mind about being unemployed. Not only that, I got a $300/month raise too. Merry Christmas!
(and everyone that knows me IRL are going "I told you!", yeah, you did, but I'm the worst case scenario planner that I am I need to have it on paper!)

Can't believe I did that!

The other day I did something really, really bad. As I was driving a friend home along Huddingevägen (a road FULL of traffic lights all the way!) I accidentally drove against a red light. Those lights are always green except that one time and I missed it. The spontaneous reaction right after was "SHIT, I hope noone saw me?" since it's one of those things you lose your license over. But after I drove home and through that same intersection again I realised just how badly that could've been. It was just pure luck that noone was crossing the road at that spot! If someone had followed the lights and crossed it I might've killed 'em! Even though I was doing slow 60 KPH, a car vs. human at that speed is not good. But that didn't happen. And I still have my license. But after feeling like shit over how badly it could've gone I'm gonna be way more observant in the future.

Fun At Work

Over the past three week's I've migrated about 230 mailboxes from one mailsystem to another. And some small errors pops up here and there and I end up having to go through their mailboxes to find that one mail among thousands to see if it's worth doing manually. And I've seen alot of fun stuff while doing it! Some fun legal things about company mergers that you wish you'd seen about a year ago but also some fun private stuff. I _accidentally_ saw a mail from a girls ex after they had just split up and man was he pissed! So even if it's a really boring thing to do, those small things makes it worth it :)

Change tyres

Another tradition around this time is to change your tyres to handle the snow & ice. It's a real hassle to do it and takes over an hour and I always end up with some muscle I haven't used in a while aching for days after. And it's cold, and boring. So yesterday I set a few hours aside to do this, put on shitty clothes, grabbed a beer and went to work. And on the second bolt of the first tyre I had to give up because I broke the damn tyre iron (or whatever it's called in english, you know that steel cross thing you take off the bolts with). I don't know who put that bolt on but it wasn't coming off - at all. So I admitted defeat (even though it was the tools that broke, not me!) and put the first bolt back on...

... and drove 400 meter to the car mechanics and had them do it in 15 minutes for $20...

Christmas time

Guess we're building up for Christmas now. Got the first snow this weekend which wasn't a good surprised considering the tyres on my car. But the Christmas decoration at NK is up anyway and that's always a nice thing to see. Unfortunately I'm totally swamped at work since we're doing this huge migration from Groupwise to Exchange mail system. And you'd be surprised how important the integrity of the lawyers mailboxes are - by law! :(

But download this and enjoy! Griswald, eat your heart out!

Blonde or not? Who cares!

Here's a thing I'd like women to explain to me - the blonde issue. First of all I've never understood why a person would wanna go blonde in the first place, but that (much like the breast-size issue) is up to them. What I have a problem with is other women, and it is exclusivly women, commenting "oh she's not a naturual blonde!"?? Does it matter?? Does it make a woman less attractive for having faking that? Or in one of those "what do people on the street think!" things I saw in Metro the other day when a woman answered "naturual blonde", as if that makes her more attractive? Out of everything awesomely wonderful in women, hair color is not even in the list. But history shows I've always prefered brunettes...

Who wasn't thinking!?

And just when I started to cheer up our communiting service is there to slap me back down. You know, the assholes that don't demand stuff like "must be able to cope with swedish winter!" when they buy new stuff. Now they bought new trains for us commuters and today was the first day I got to ride one. And they Suck. Basically you get the feeling that the ones ordering it never really use them because then they might have cared about more seats instead of more space for the people that have to stand up. And the ones that do have to stand were severly lacking bars to hold onto when the train twists as much as it is now with all re-construction going on there. I wanna go back to taking the car to work instead. It wasn't cheap, it wasn't environment friendly but atleast you were comfortable.

But this will cheer up your day.

RIP Michael Piller!

Almost two weeks without an update. It's a combination of being busy and not having anything positive to write. The past few weeks have been pretty depressing. And Michael Piller, one of the best TV writers there was, died. And tons of stuff to do at work, a job I still don't know if I'll have in 2 months time. But I don't like being that depressive guy. Realist maybe, but not depressing. I prefer trying to cheer people up and I do a pretty good job of it. But I suck at cheering myself up!

But today I went back home to my parent's place to celebrate father's day and my sisters birthday. And that really put me in a better mood. Except when my mother starts babbling about me not delivering any grandkids but I've learnt to live with that.

VIP Treatment

So what did you do last night? If you're answer is anything less than "bought dinner for John Rhys-David and Marina Sirtis" I got you beat! You'd think I'd be most impressed with meeting Marina Sirtis since I'm a trekker, but I've always been impressed by John! He's just an awesome actor and now I can even say that he's a great guy. And deep too! We had a Q&A with them and one of the most interesting ideas he proposed was to teach everything in school through history. Math, geography, religion, science, everything. And he was fun to. Unfortunately he was exhausted so after the Q&A and dinner I took them back to their hotel. Great saturday for me!!

Katie who?

As I was walking to work last friday I walked by a place with alot of posters and stuff on the wall and I noted a poster about some Katie Melua visiting Stockholm this weekend. She looked beautiful on the poster so I thought I'd download a song or two at work. Wow! Awesome stuff! I've never been much of a blues fan - as a matter of fact, until that night in Helsinki at Storyville I'd never even bothered listening to it. But this was just WOW! Just listen to Shy Boy, that was enough for me to go out and buy the album! Love it when that happens, things like this just comes along and leaves your mind blown away! And I'd also like to point out that had it not been for these things that the record industry is trying to stop I would never have bought her album, think about that!

Do your part!

Today Metro did something really nice! Metro is a free newspaper that doesn't have to create stories by twisting facts, they make their money off advertisements. ANYWAY, they had picture with the Crazy Frog and text that said "SMS to this number and pay $4 for an annoying ringtune and support a millionaire", and right next to it a picture of an orphan pakistani child with the text "or SMS to this number and donate the money". I think that really hit home cause it was so in your face. And if I wasn't donating money to Unicef, Amnesty, Greenpeace and the Red Cross as well as donating blood - I'd feel guilty.

Travel diaries

And today I found out what people that don't have a site like this do when travelling and want an online diary - Resedagboken.se. Didn't know that place existed until a cyber-friend of mine went downunder to australia and started a diary there. I'm gonna go there someday too, I just suck at saving up for something like that.

Lazyboy

Now I'm just pure lazy! I was reminded I even have this place today when I bumped into one of the managers of the projects that had me travelling the globe. And it made me feel all kinds of happy so I went through my logs and updates during that time and it's so funny reading it now 2 years later :) I think I should make some kind of special section on this site (or even design a new one) for all that stuff. I actually wish Blizzard would have some kind of melt down at their datacenters so I could get my ass out of the cyberworld and do stuff!

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot!

I don't care what anybody says, when it's the 27th september and I can go around stockholm in a t-shirt and still feel comfortably warm - that's just wrong! Something's really messed up with the weather. And the fact that Bush says the opposite makes it even more likely.

Tech-talk

This morning I saw something on the train that made me smile. A woman, a beautiful one at that, was talking on her cellphone. Nothing special about that. Thing was she was deaf and was using the third generation cell phones with the camera feature and "talking" with sign language. Made me smile cause it's the first time I've seen that. And people say technology doesn't make people's lifes better...

Is no news good news?

Another sad day for journalism. Aftonbladet, the tabloid that likes to think of itself as the biggest newspaper in sweden, had a front page today that was... totally irrelevant. Some guy in "Idol 2005" (our version "Popstar" or whatever) performed some song to his new girlfriend and started crying. Yeah, seriously, that's the story on the front page today! Maybe if he had sung some love song to his boyfriend or something it might have been miniscule newsworthy, but not even that.

If I'd done the front page I probably would have had a some kinda memorial to Simon Wiesenthal. But that's just me.

I spoke too soon again

I think I may have spoken too soon. When I was thinking about it I think I owe september 11th 2001 for working here at the law firm! Because at the time I was working as a consultant hired out on a long term assignment to the biggest swedish airline (SAS). But after september 11th and another accident in italy they got rid of all their consultants to save money fast. So it was back to the office for me and just when that happens this law firm called wanting more people and I was the only one in idle mode. And who knows, if I'd been at SAS I might not be allowed to participate in the world tour of 2003 & 2004 :) So I guess I was affected after all.

The Flight that Fought Back

I finished my september 11th by watching "The Flight that Fought Back". Sounds like a bad horror movie. It was a documentary on Discovery about UA093, the plane that was crashed in the middle of nowhere (sorry all Pennsylvanians) on September 11th 2001. You remember reading about that plane and I have some distinct memory of hearing the passengers crashed it so it wouldn't hurt anyone else but this is the first time I've ever seen what, to the best of anyones knowledge, happened. And it was pretty emotional. All the personal stories and everything, and the clips back to what happened in NY with all the news footage, very emotional stuff. And I don't know why! I mean what happened that day was a tragedy all around, but this was the little light that made it into a "could have been worse"-scenario, but why would I get emotional about that? I wasn't directly effected by it? I didn't know anyone there or effected by it? Or anyone that knew someone even. And it's a war between the US and muslims, so nothing I'm involved in. But still when I see footage of the second plane hitting I'm praying it'll miss... I don't get that emotional when I see footage and read horror stories from New Orleans in the past weeks, and that was on a humane scale far worse!

September 11th again

September 11th again. Almost missed it had it not been for WoW telling me the date. Double memorial day. 4 years ago now since they changed the NY skyline. And 2 years ago since some asshole took away Anna Lindh, one of the few politicians I could really vote for. I can't remember exactly what I did last tuesday at 5, but I can tell you exactly what I did and how I felt 4 and 2 years ago. 4 years ago I was home sick from work and laid in my couch playing GT3 all day until turning on the TV for the 6 o'clock news and then not turning the news off for 8-9 hours. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was just so unreal, like someone would yell "cut!" any second you know. And 2 years ago I was busy installing computers in Gdansk but that day I didn't get alot of work done. All I could do was refresh the swedish newssites all day and feeling like I really didn't wanna be there, I wanted to be home because I pass the place it happened at almost everyday and I just wanted to do something. But couldn't. So that's the kind of day I've had. :(

The Discovery Channel

Yesterday some idiots proved another odd point they made in "Crash" - criminals don't watch the Discovery channel. If they did they'd probably do their homework alot better. Because yesterday some 3-4 guys decided to rob a Securitas van carrying money to their clients. They got into the van by blowing it up, really smart, huh? But that's not the funny thing. Their escape plan wasn't the best so they had to stop, or atleast delay, the police to give them a head start so they sat a few cars on fire on the E4 highway at the bridge at Vårby. Good plan. Except if they knew anything they'd know the cops come down on the highway at the NEXT exit (Slagsta) so that stunt had no effect at all except jam up traffic for a few hours. Geez, stupid criminals. I happen to know this cause I drive that road alot. But I guess we should be happy they're stupid.

Crash

You know how sometimes a movie you've never heard of comes along and just blows you away? Well, sometimes that doesn't really happen! I saw "Crash" posted on an internet site and checked it up on IMDB and it had gotten great reviews. And it was another one of those movies that follow alot of differnet people and plots that come together at some point, stuff I usually like. So I bought it on DVD instead of download it. But man was I disappointed!! It was very, very racist. As a matter of fact, it was about nothing else than racism and prejudice. And I guess I was brought up in a way too protected environment to get this kinda thing. The only one I could relate to was Sandra Bullocks character that posed the question "where is the line between protecting yourself and racism". That after having their car stolen by 2 black guys. And acting wise the only one that excelled was Thandie Newton. If you wanna see a day of 10 more or less racist peoples lifes in LA, go see it. If not - don't.

WoWing my life away

WoW is still dominating my free time. It's gotten so bad I haven't even seen the new "Battlestar Galactica" episodes that we've waited half a year for. But last friday we proved just how social that game can be. Our guild (Evil Inc.) was doing an instance in the game called Molten Core which is huge, difficult and time consuming. And it requires a group of no less than 40 players! So from around 7pm on friday night to just before 4 am on saturday morning 40 people were connected playing and talking with eachother (voice communication is a must in that place). I don't think there's any other game out there that can do that. In Battlefield we found it hard to get 10 players together at a given time. In Counterstrike you only needed 5. But 40 - for 8 hours... And yes, we're all nuts!

Are they for real?

This kinda stuff never gets old! Let me translate - an 18 year old girl says she got raped at a party. The lawyer to the guy who's accused is requesting that she wear the same jeans and tries to strip in front of everyone at the court to prove that they were too tight for any rapist to forcibly remove. If it wasn't such a serious matter I'd laugh... And no, I'm not taking sides to if he did or not, I'm just scared at the fact that the legal system is so good at protecting the accused but doesn't really care about the victims...

Speaking of serious - alot of you are probably wondering what happened to my headache? I wish I could say. The truth is that it's almost gone. But I still feel ... weird up there. But I'm still not sure if it's mental or something actually wrong with me. Right now I'm in a holding pattern to find out if I'm gonna get a steady job or go unemployed from october 25th, because that is the only mental thing I can think of that can cause this. If it doesn't get better after that I'm gonna have to get some kind of checkup of my head but right now I'm just waiting. And playing too much WoW...

And they pull me back in!

WoW! That's the reason my freetime is totally wiped out of existence, why my personal life has been reduced to a bunch of ones and zeroes in a database in Germany! I don't know how Blizzard creates this addictive feeling in their games but yesterday I stepped over the line between "avid player" to "junkie"! Our old SoulCrushers guild has decided to merge with a guild that has high standards and expects alot of us. The entrance exam is to get the so called "Onyxia key", and to get it you have to complete 14 different quests and most of them you have to be in a team of 5 to do and 3 of them in a team of 15 players. So when you get a chance to go with a large group of people you value it. And in the very last quest you have to collect something from the last boss and it takes some 3 hours to get to him. We did it all 3 times and I never got it and that third time I got so pissed, angry, depressed, bitter and a general asshole. Until I realised it's only a game, it's only a few numbers in a cyberexistence, in the final tally it's not worth crap. Fortunately I have the ability to distance myself from... well, myself to think about stuff like that. But I'm not the kind that gives up and on my fourth attempt, at 1 am last night, I got it. But I didn't get that many hours of sleep because I had to get up at 6 to go to work.

Dentist are sadists!

That does it! Now I'm convinced. I'm a believer. Dentists ARE sadists! I've had many dentists in my years. More than most people go through in a lifetime. And they've all been horrible to me and my teeth. Unconsiderate to how it feels lying there helpless as they are drilling away! About a month ago I had everything in my mouth fixed up and I had my wisdom tooth pulled. The nurse that time was very considerate and helped a little bit, but the doc wasn't. He pulled it straight out. After that I got a terrible toothache in a tooth right next to it. I thought it'd go away, but nope. So last week I called in to get an appointment. "My" dentists wasn't there but I got to see another dentist instead but he was booked for a week. And today I got there. I told him "I'm experienceing pain in the tooth in front of the wisdom tooth the other guy pulled and it feels like a cavity". So what does this guy do? First he knocks (yeah, he did actually knock!) around to see if all the teeth are in place, then he pulls up a water sprayer thingamajig and sprays the entire area with ice cold water! Didn't the f*cker here me or what? I was so close to punching him! I mean if I go into a doctors office and say I've had a headache for 6 months they say "it'll pass" (I wish that was a hypothetical!), they won't knock you in the head will they? But go to a dentist and say you think you have a cavity and he'll spray cold water on it! God damn that hurt, right to the bone and it's still freezing 4 hours later! And what was his conclussion? "Well, you do have a cavity so I'll set an appointment with your dentist to fix it, but she won't get back from holiday for a month!". And then he charged me $30 for saying something I already knew so I must've been paying for the pain. SUCKER! But apparently walking around with a cavity right down to the nerve for a month isn't a problem for some people.

Still not getting it

And now the politicians in the US wanna go have a comittee and do a study on the real world effects of kids gaming too much thanks to all the recent "Grand Theft Auto" stuff. Even a grandmother who bought the 17+ game for her 14 year old grandson is suing them for false advertisement amongst other things! It really makes me sad to hear all this. If it's not rock'n'roll, TV, movies, internet it's games. It can't possibly be the parents, or rather parent's perception of things like this. I could go on and on about it, but I think this open letter to Hillary Clinton (who's spearheading this) says it all much better than I could!

What do they know?

And when the top music execs in LA got to make their top 10 list, this is what you get. Out of all those, Alicia Keys is the only one I like. Beyonce was ok but getting a bit dull by now. And I'm sorry, I just can't like someone that changes his name to "Andre 3000", it's just not cool... So I guess this leaves me stuck on VH1 looking at "top 100 of the 80's"-lists. They did a "Top 100 Women" list and for once I was able to nail the top 10. I got the order a bit wrong (never would've thought they'd put Aretha Franklin as high as #2!) but Madonna being # 1 was abit too easy. Makes more sense than putting Robbie as # 1 on their "100 men" list! That still feels so wrong.

Violence = good, sex = bad

American double-standards are in full swing again! If you haven't been following the story of Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas, here's a recap : The game is a very violent game in which you kill people with guns or bats or whatever, steal cars and you're a general bad guy. It's sold like butter so far even though it had a "Mature (17+)" rating. Now a couple of programmers not related to the manufacturers at all released a little addon to the game that unlocks a part of the game that was previously hidden. It was in there but locked by the creators of the game. It was a little erotic mini game that takes place when the original game just shows the exterior of the house with moaning in the background. And when that got a bit of media attention all hell broke lose in america and thanks to political preassure they have to re-rate the game to Adults Only, and the creators of the game will complete take this part away to try to lower the rating.

Now here's my thought : A game which goal is to kill people and do all kinds of illegal stuff is rated "mature", but as soon as there's a little change (by a third party) that involves sex, that's when they start to protest and label it "adults only"? I would've thought it was the other way around! Can't those americans get over their conservative "we don't talk about sex even though everyone is doing it"-attitude? "Mature" is 17+, and isn't that the perfect time to play these erotic mini-games rather than go around cyber-town waving double 9mm Barettas? I'm starting to think that the violent incidents like Columbine more had with sexual frustration than it had with the Matrix or Marilyn Manson! But ofcourse that's me and I grew up playing Liesure Suit Larry that my parents didn't really know it was :)

Beam scotty up!

A sad day for trekkers & sci-fi : Scotty has been beamed up. See you up there lad!

Class-warrior?

I let that update stay up a liiiitle bit longer than average because it was a good post :)

Let's talk classes! It's been pumped up as an issue by one of our politicians dissing a reporter for saying she was from a worker class and as it turns out she wasn't. Now my question is... are we still doing that? Putting people into classes? And who's to say who belongs where? I mean, is there a certain limit as to how much you can earn before you get bumped up a notch? In this title obsessed world where the guy (or woman) sweeping the floor is a "sanitation engineer" you can't really go by titles? And what am I? I'd like to think I'm worker class. I've made my own money since I was 15, did my time flipping burgers and my friends at work are the janitors. Sorry, custodians. But I have an engineering degree, work at a lawfirm and make a decent living? I thought this entire class-thing was outdated but the socialist seem kinda strict about it...

The Scoop

Ok, so here's the story of our Silverstone Weekend '05!

This year I turned 30. And when that's happened to my sisters we've always done something special so we had to do something special this year too. And the one thing we all wanted to do was attend a Formula 1 Grand Prix. And since Amy lives in Scotland with her family and all it was decided that we were gonna attend the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Amy's husband Paul also loved F1 so he wanted to go and so did my brother Joakim. 5 people all in all. We ordered the tickets around Christmas, no problem. The problem was accomodations! Naturally all hotels and everything in a 10 mile radius was overbooked! Fortunately for us we found a family living in Blakesley that rented out a few rooms for this special occasion and they had 3 rooms available. My parents paid for that part and said "that's all your birthday presents for this year all taken care of at once". Sweet deal for all. And this year hasn't really been the greatest for our family so we were all looking forward to getting away and just have fun for a whole weekend. And it was good!

It all started on thursday when Jocke and AC came over to my apartment to spend the night. It was the easiest solution since we had to go up early to get to the airport. Unfortunately we didn't get much sleep since we watched a few movies, sat around and talked and just hung out. I got 3 hours of sleep, AC less than that and Jocke didn't get any. But we got up early and headed to the airport. Smallest airport I've ever seen (not counting the one in "Wings"). After checking in we sat outside and a crew from the swedish TV showed up wanting to interview people about how the bombing on thursday has affected them. They interviewed AC but since we left the country we never got to see if they showed it or not. Two hours later we touched down at Luton and was greated by Amy and Paul. The weather was EXACTLY as I expected. Cold, grey and drizzling. We decided to skip the London part and just do the shopping up in Northampton instead so we got ready to go on a bus for over an hour up there. That is if the bus had arrived but after 30 minutes and no bus me and Paul decided it was time for taxi. £65 later and we were in Northampton. I did my shopping (which consisted of a new memory card for my camera) and then we sat down at the local pub for some beer and food. The ladies continued shopping and we continued consuming beer. After that we went over to Towcester and ... had some more beer and food but by now we started feeling the sleep deprivation. So taxi out to Blakesley and me and Jocke went to bed right away while the others went to the pub.

After about 11 hours of sleep we were good as new and ready to head out to the track! The arrangement was that Christine, the wife of the family we were staying at, would give us a ride to and from the track for some compensation. Said and done, but we still had to walk for a mile or so to the actual track. We got there during the saturday practice session so we caught a few glimpses of the cars. Then we walked for another mile to the Hangar Straight grandstands and took our seats to see the qualifying. By now the Porsche race was on but that was just foreplay! The Blue Eagles had an airshow with some helicopters and then it was time for the real qualifying. And even though they've tried to make it more interesting and audience friendly it was still a very predictable event. After that we made our way back to Copse to just sit around with beer, burgers and watching the GP2 race. Then it was back to Blakesley and that's when one of the few bad things happened - when she was coming to pick us up she hit a parking post that did a good job of scratching her car. Not a big thing but it's still gonna set them back a little bit which we all felt bad about. Not that it was our fault or anything. Then we hit the local pub in Blakesley and then back to Towcester for some food and stuff. Unfortunately the pubs there were so busy they couldn't fix the food part so we got a few take-out pizzas and sat down at the pub with the beers and just talked the night away. Then back to the pub in Blakesley for the closing-up party that lasted 'till 2 am!

Then on sunday it was time for the main event! We still had to walk all the way over there and made it just in time to see the drivers going around the track waving to the audience. Then time for Red Arrows to do their thing (which they do very well!) and now it really started to feel like a special event! Unfortunately for us the race turned out to be a pretty dull race, not many overtakings, crashes or anything and the Ferrari's came 6th and 7th, but none of it matter because it was the thought that counted!
After the race we picked up our stuff in Blakesley and went back to Northampton where it turned out to be really difficult finding a pub open past 11. One that isn't a gay bar that is (I'm not juding!). And the ones we did find didn't even know what Jägermeister was. So we got bored at 11.30 and took a taxi back to Luton airport. The planes lifted off at about 7am so you can imagine how bored we were at 3am! And then without getting any sleep me and Jocke boarded the plane going back to sweden while AC followed Amy and Paul up to Aberdeen. Landed at about 10am and buss into Stockolm and train back to my apartment and that should have been it. But no, I'm still suffering from the second bad thing this weekend - the sun burns! Noone expected it to be THAT much sun and I'm right now in a not-so-pretty pink state. But that'll pass but the memories of one of the greatest weekends of my life will remain with me forever!

Thanks everyone for making it such a great weekend! Thanks mom and dad for paying for the accomodations and taking care of Amy and Paul's kids over the weekend! Thanks to Amy for even finding accomodations and Paul for making it down there (was touch and go there with the fog) and AC for being the crazy girl she is and Jocke for taking all the crap I give him and the family that rented us the rooms and all the bartenders (even the one in Towcester 'cause she couldn't add)!

So now I've got to go back to work. Doesn't matter, I could've taken 5 weeks vacation and it still wouldn't have meassured up to this weekend.

Someone Had Fun!

Back after a kick ass weekend at Silverstone! More info coming later...

Being Selfish

Will you excuse me while I become a self-centered SOB for a few seconds? The day before I'm flying over to London to enjoy a weekend with my sisters, my bro Jocke and my sisters hubby Paul culminating in the F1 race on sunday afternoon, this has to happen? Something set of a series of explosions in London. It's too early to confirm anything ofcourse, but just the thought of "great timing" hits me right away. Followed ofcourse by "oh my god, how bad was it?" and eventually "hope they don't close the city down". We were planning on taking a little sidetrip into central London, but I guess we're gonna stay clear of that now!

Agreeing with Bush?

A very weird thing happened today. Read one of Bush's speeches ahead of the G8 summit (and if you tuned in to the "Live 8" show you know all about it) and I actually agreed with him on one point. Something that hasn't been adressed alot is all the corruption down there in Africa. That's something that has to be dealt with too, 'cause if you send 1 million bucks how much will actually help the people? That was the great thing with "Live Aid" 20 years ago, they bought their own logistical equipment (even a boat!) to make sure all the help they sent went to the people. Everytime I've been to Africa (all 3 times) I've always heard about how terrible corruption is. First time, in Kenya, I didn't believe it that much, thought it was just the tourguide exaggerating. Then in Nigeria I saw it everytime I wanted a cab. And in Congo I wouldn't have gotten the medical treatment I needed if the assistant from the embassy hadn't taken the bag of cash with her. And they also told me the story of all the people they had to bribe to get Anna Lindh the trip on the river that runs through Kinshasa that she spontaneously wanted to do. So without "taking care" of that I can understand why they don't wanna send more aid.

Live 8?

I dunno why but I had no idea about "Live 8" that was coming up on saturday! I must've missed all press attention they never got here in sweden. But as I was flipping through the channels I came up on VH1 that had someone reporting from there saying "it's a party down here, now back to our music"! It turns out I had to tune into our Channel 1 and survive with the INCREDIBLY annoying commentators ruining half the enjoyment!

As far as the concert(s) are concerned, they really did rock but it didn't feel as .. big .. as the original 20 years ago. Maybe it's my "when I was a kid"-mentality. Madonna rocked as always, "Pet Shop Boys" got thousands of russians singing "go west" and Will Smith getting Philadelphia singing the intro to Fresh Prince, funny stuff. But then I saw an interview with Blair being asked some tough questions by the MTV audience and wow, there are some really big and depressing problems out there to deal with! And having a concert like this isn't really gonna change THAT much, is it?

So now I'm waiting for the DVD :)

BOOM!

As I was doing some shopping the other day I found the "Anastacia" DVD for a cheap 10 bucks. Why not, always thought her music was ok. Got home and put it on.. and ouch, that music in Dolby Digital on a bit too high volume, NICE! And the BOOMs in Boom made all my glasses in my kitchen move. :) Now I'm left wondering what other music out there sounds this awesome in a digital mix...

Wear sunscreen!

One song (if you can call it a song) that is getting better and better for every year that passes is Baz Luhrmanns "Wear Sunscreen" with alot, ALOT, of true statements about life. Basically a list of things you wish you knew when you were a kid. One line in particular:

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.
And as so much in that song, it's so true. Today I heard that an old collegue, I'd even call him a friend, has suddenly passed away. Just like that, totally unexpected. Shocked.

Not the way I wanted to spend the weekend

Well that was a boring midsummer's eve! Midsummer's eve is a pretty big thing in sweden, classic holiday with a very holida-specific cuisine and ofcourse, a shot or two of vodka or something equally strong. But for the first time since I was a teenager I was totally sober all through the weekend. But I'm very cautios when it comes to medication so I don't wanna mix prescribed painkillers with alcohol. But that certainly didn't stop me from enjoying the weekend out in the country with my family. And just sitting on out on the porch, not doing anything and just relaxing is something I've only now started to enjoy. I certainly didn't appeciate it enough when I lived there, but I do now.

Someone heard me!

Some higher power must've heard me 'cause 8 hours after I wrote yesterday's update I got the F1 tickets, the tooth is pulled, headache gone (thanks to 600mg Brufen) and I got $500 more in my last pay check than I thought I would. Now if through some miracle my body could bounce back from the shock of the tooth removal operation in just one day that'd be awesome, otherwise I'm looking at a very lame midsummer's eve

Pulling teeth

Today I'm having my second wisdom tooth pulled. Or cracked is more like it. I'm hoping that will help atleast a little bit with the headaches! The worst part of it is that it's gonna set me back some $200, just when I need it the most as I'm heading to Silverstone in 2 weeks. That is if we ever get the tickets. They're supposed to be on the way but I'm sitting here expecting the worst. It also means I have to go on painkillers for a few days. I dunno why but I've never liked taking medication, atleast not for a long time. I don't wanna get hooked on anything ('cause let's face it, you do feel good after some heavy prescription Brufen) and pain is always the indicator something's wrong and I can't just take a pill and let it go away and think everything is fine.

Blame-games

Don't you love a good biased blame-game? I'm ofcourse talking about the F1 race yesterday. A year ago two cars on Michelin tyres had accidents at high speeds in the F1 race at Indianapolis. And then in Belgium they also had some trouble and Jenson crashed out att 300+ KPH. And this year it's been pretty obvious that Michelin tyres have been closer to the edge than Bridgestone and where told to watch it a few weeks ago. And this weekend started with two Michelin tyre failures and Michelin put out a press release saying they couldn't guarantee the safety of the drivers running on their tyres if certain steps weren't taken. Something I guess you have to do when you're in the states and people suing each other left and right. And that's where facts stops and the blaming game begins. Everyone is blaming everyone, but the most surprising statement was from Ove Andersson, a guy with decades of motorracing experience. He laid the blame at Ferrari's feet since they opposed the idea of building a chicane to adapt the circuit to the failing tyres, something which really wasn't up to them to decide in the first place. And it's not really their fault Michelin didn't have the right rubber or spares. So that's why it surprised me. But oh, and he works for Toyota, the team that had two crashes so that explains it. Then the FIA is blaming Michelin for not supplying appropriate tyres. And Michelin is blaming FIA for not being flexible and allowing a change of tyres or building the chicane. And the racers just wanna race and the fans just wanna see a race. So in that sense it's surprising to see the teambosses, FIA reps and all other people involved in this mega-million sport behaving like kids blaming each other and trying to out-do eachother resulting in all Michelin cars coming into the pits expecting the race to be stopped and the FIA to bend the rules in 11th hour. But nope. So I quote David Coulthard - "reality is mature adults couldn't find a solution that would let us go racing". Here, here...

Lazyboy Again

Boy am I having one of the laziest weekends ever! I even sat a new record for laziest maneuver ever today - as I was refilling my coca cola glass I dropped the cap. Instead of bending down to pick it up, I took the cap from an empty bottle right beside me. Just how lazy is that? And I'm writing this sitting out on my balcony, blazing sun, cold cola and a computer in my lap. Nice!

But I guess I better get a move on since I'm suppose to be at O'Learys in a few hours to watch the Indy F1 race. If there is gonna be a race that is.

Let me clarify!

Maybe I should clarify what I said about work yesterday. As computer tech jobs go this is one of the best jobs to have (short of the one I had at the state department) and it's definitely the best place to work at. But somehow it's gone from the "yippi, another day at Vinge, admiring all the gorgeous women and occasionally answer the phone and help someone with some lame computer problem"-attitude I had when I worked here for over a year back in 2002 and 2003 to "oh do I have to?". But I'm still admiring the women. And answering the phone :)

Am I going insane?

After I donated blood about three weeks ago I didn't get a single headache (except for June 3rd, for obvious reasons) but during the weekend it came back :( And now I don't know just how much of this is psychological or physical! Because during these 2 weeks I was fine, didn't get headaches, social, updated this blog, online chatting with friends and stuff, but now after it's back I'm getting this depression again when I get up, go to work, work enough not to get fired and can't wait to get home and when I do I just crash in my couch and can't motivate myself to do anything more than I really have to. So it could all be me going through a depression right now - only problem is I don't know what I have to be depressed about. Except this headache that just won't quit. Next week I'm having a wisdom tooth removed to eliminate it from the equation and if that doesn't help I'm off to see a neurologist. But I'm still hoping the Doc is right and it's just something temporary that should go away by itself since all tests show that I'm as healthy as I should be.

Who Cares?

Am I the only one who's so sick and tired of this Brad & Angelina BS? You can't do a quick newsscan without reading something about them somewhere, are they or aren't they. Who gives a crap?! Nobody that I wanna know cares either way or wanna read it so shut up. And that includes me!

Summer In The City!

First real day of summer in Stockholm today! I was walking my normal route from work to the train station and it warm, sunny, alot of people outside, a real party atmosphere on "Plattan" and truckloads of newly graduated students really made me feel all good and warm, and ofcourse saying "those were the days" in the back of my head...

What Better Is There

Perhaps I was a bit too harsh the other day because when I tried thinking about something more appropriate to celebrate as our national day I came up blank. We've never been occupied or conquered, have we? And we haven't had any good revolution (let's not mix "bloodbath" with "revolution") here either. So there really isn't anything more swedish to celebrate than Gustav Vasa I guess, which makes me sad 'cause it makes sweden sound dull. We weren't even in any of the WW...

National Day

For the first time our national day, June 6th, is a national holiday which means everyone got another day off from work/school to celebrate... ??.. Gustav Vasa's ascension to the throne in 1523. Yeap, that feels very relevant today, doesn't it? I mean, other countrie's national days are for something huge, usually some independance day, revolution or the founding of the country in question. And most of them are atleast in modern times, but we have our's for a thing that happened 500 years ago! Maybe it's just me and my total lack of interest in swedish royalty history (I always say something crazy at those Trivial Pursuit questions asking which king did what), but I think we should have some national day on a date that actually means something to me today. But I'm all for any chance to have a full day off from work!

So Not 20 Anymore!

I'm SO not 20 anymore! When my 30th birthday approached I was thinking about what kinda party I should throw, if any. The problem was that my main partying is gonna be at Silverstone in a month and that's setting me back financially. So I didn't wanna spring for a huge party like my house warming party, and we have already done that finnish cruise thing for my 25th. So this time I just told people "I'll be at Dubliners (a pub one block away from work) from 6, swing by if you can". And they sure did! I think we counted 16 overall, gaming-buddies, old school friends, former and current collegues and family. Overall a really good night out and nice way to spend my 30th birthday! But the main event is in a month :) But when I woke up this morning I had the worst headache ever and considering the past 6 months have been full of headaches, that's saying quite alot!

Last day as 2X-something

This will be my last update as a 20-something guy. In 6 hours I'll be a 30-something guy. So let us recap the past 10 years:

After 1 academically failed year at the University in Växjö, I moved back home, got a job I liked at great company. Got new friends, co-started a Trekker organization, started my home theater system, got an interest for Formula 1, got to go to Greece, got a promotion, got to go to Kenya. Moved to my own place (blasting housewarming party!). Got another promotion to the best job I've ever had (developing our e-commerce site), took a few trips on the party-boats over to Finland (another blasting party on my 25th birthday). Company went broke, got a drivers license, re-educated myself to pc techie, started working a little off and on at a lawfirm. Celebrated one sister's 30th birthday in scotland, lost my best friend, got a job at the state department, travelled around the world, celebrated the other sister's 30th birthday, visited Africa while suffering from salmonella and then got to go to Italy. Helped organize the first Star Trek Convention in sweden (ever) and spend a few days in the company of Tim Russ. Had a few lazy months as a consultant inbetween jobs. Finally got the boot and a headache that won't go away and got a steady job at the lawfirm and bought the last piece for a home theater (projector)... and that brings us up to date.

Overall a good 10-year run I think. And to start my 30's I'm gonna have a good get together tonight at The Dubliner tomorrow night (everyone's invited) and then off to see the F1 race at Silverstone!

Turning 30

I hate being predictable. But right on time I'm having the predictable "where's my life"-going thoughts that everyone has when they turn 30. Or is it "should have"? I've never had a problem with any of it, but here I am. And ofcourse it doesn't help when speaking to an old collegue that just became a father (congrats Anton!), and other friends settling down and stuff. But I ain't mad. It's just a number :)

Did I Say That?

Over the past few days I've been corresponding with a person in the USA about some of the stuff I wrote in my essay-things a while back. "A while back" in this case is 2001. But since then I've done alot and seen alot and I realise that I was pretty naive and inexperienced when I wrote some of those a few years back. So to use the same cliché again - "if I knew then what I know now". So I really should go through and update them. But I didn't know people still read them!

Stop watching ER!

I think I may very well be a hypochondriac. And thinking you're a hypochondriac pretty much proves it, doesn't it? I think I've gone through all kinds of theories behind this ever lasting headache, from simple wisdomtooth to tumor and I don't know how many times I've killed myself with all deceases I've given myself! And today I woke up with pain in my abdomen, but that I just blame on my pills of iron I'm taking to make up for the blood donation the other day. But not after thinking my appendix was about to burst. As I said, hyponcriac alert! Is that the price you pay for watching too much ER?

Formula 1

One more reminder "all good things must come to an end" is Ferrari's performance in F1 right now. Or lack thereof. It was bound to end and we've been spoilt with wins over the past 4 years. But it's still fun to watch and read, especially when planet-f1.com writes stuff like this:
Jarno Trulli's pass on Fisichella was a bit like sex for the first time: It was fumbly, it was awkward and embarrassing, but he knew he had to go through with it. It didn't work out for him, but hey, we've all been there.

Eurovision song contest

Another thing that works awesome with my home cinema is the Eurovision Song Contest. Usually it was just pretty fun to watch, but now it's quiet an experience seeing it in 100" and the thumping sound. And "thumping" is pretty accurate since every damn number had thumping drums all the time. Still think Hungary should've won. One of the things I enjoyed was all the BOOOING all the friends-voting got, like Scandinavian countries voting for eachother no matter how sucky the songs are. That's usually just an accepted behavior, but now they got alot of boooooos :)

What am I paying for?

You know what I can't get? Sunglasses for $500?? Exactly what do they do that the ones I buy ($20) don't? I'm not a cheap guy, I paid extra for my projector because it had features and i/o ports that I needed so I'll pay for something with more features and stuff. But sunglasses? They only have two features - fade and look cool. That's it! So why would do people sell and buy glasses for $500??? I've never understood that. And since I go through 3-4 per year you can imagine why I only buy cheap ones.

If i knew then

I hate wanting to kick myself in the ass saying "if I knew then what I know now...". I usually say it when thinking about how I hated school or something that's a few years off, but in the past two days I've gone through my last two years of updates and reading all the stuff when I was travelling and all I have to say to myself is "if I knew then what I know now". But "then" in this case is only two years ago. Which means I must've learnt alot of stuff in the past two years. Maybe that's why I'm feeling so indifferent to my current job, cause let's face it, you can't beat travelling the world, staying for 2 weeks in every country, living in hotels, doing something you're good at, eating at restaurants everyday, making tons of money and everything on the tax payers dollars.
(yes Ricki, I know!)

So worth it!

I invite everyone who thought that buying a new projector and stuff for $2.500 was a stupid idea to come on over to my apartment and see Flatley's "Feet of Flames". Wowsy how grand it looked at 100". And it's always a bitter reminder of my # 2 regret of my childhood - I shouldn't have dropped out of dance school.

All good things still come to an end

Well the past 24 hours have been really, really depressing! One of the things I hate about life is when good things end, which as everyone knows has to happen. Like when you get fired from your job and thus losing touch with alot of friends. Or when you've gotten used to travelling around the world and all of a sudden that ends. Well on friday night I finally saw the last episodes of "Babylon 5" (still one of the best written TV shows ever!) and the last two episodes are all about this, good things that come to an end. And today I saw the last episode of modern Star Trek. End of an era. For the first time since 1987 there won't be a new Star Trek episode made for quite a while. And before I was ready to accept that, Sweden got knocked out of the world championship in one of the best games I've seen in a long, long time. So yeah, all good things still come to an end. But still, this was a very rewarding saturday.

Geeks calling geeks geeks

Yesterday as I was walking along Kungsgatan I noticed a bunch of people putting up tents and stuff and forming a long line outside one of our biggest cinema's, Rigoletto. To any normal average Joe this might've looked weird and stupid and made no sense what so ever. Not to me. To me it's inspiring to see how this many people can be so dedicated to a movie saga that they'll sleep on the streets just to be sure to get the tickets for the first showing of the new Star Wars movie. Other people may think it's geeky and looooooser-style, but I respect it. If I didn't have a job, if sweden was knocked out of the hockey championship and if I had a tent, I might have joined them. But nah, I'll just wait 'til Monday when I can order the tickets online!

Queen - still rocking!

Remember how I'm always saying that music was better in the 80's and even 90's? Well here we go again - after seeing the Live Aid concert on DVD I ordered Queen's Wembley concert from 1986. And - wow! There really isn't any group in todays pop-scene that can even come close to rocking that place that much! Just awesome. And a little emotional too when Freddie says that the band is gonna be together until they "f*cking die". Good show.

The musicstore

Finally! After years and years of debating illegal downloads of MP3 and stuff we FINALLY get Apple's music store here in sweden! For a country as high up on the IT scale it took way too long! Just wish it was a little bit cheaper but it'll do for downloading those old 80's tracks that noone seems to be posting in those free (read "illegal") places.

Perfectly healthy??

My doctor just called. All the tests they did on all my blod last friday showed that I'm... in perfect health. I don't even have a high sugar- or cholesterol level. Which makes me think they must've messed up 'cause with all the junkfood, and the bag of crisps I had the day before, there's no way everything should be normal. But it is. Which eliminates most theories about my headache.

Relaxing weekend

Well that was a very relaxing weekend that I certainly needed! On friday I enjoyed some Underworld and Higlander on my new projector I bought myself as a 30th birthday gift, on saturday I enjoyed a Star Trek videoday with friends and trekkers and ended with a good hockeygame as Sweden crushed Canada and then on Sunday I slept late, enjoyed a (disappointing) Formula 1 race at O'Learys with both of my sisters and finished with another hockeygame as Sweden got crushed by the US of A. All in all - GREAT WEEKEND!

My headache troubles

Ever since Christmas I've had this small tiny itsy-bitsy headache. I haven't felt it that much and haven't even been bothered by it since most of the time I don't even think about it. But when I'm sitting still not getting much sensory input from anything I've always felt it. And in the past month it's gotten worse and started to bother me so I finally gave up and went to see the Doctor - AGAIN! Ever since my salmonella I've been in and out of there more than I ever thought possible for a normal healthy close-to-30 person. I was ready for anything from brain tumor to just lack of B12 or whatever. But headaches are such a non-descriptive thing that she really didn't know what was wrong. She took tons of blood to analyze (6 vials!) and I'm off to the dentist to make sure it's not a wisdom tooth that's creating tension in my head. But she wrote off the tumor thing way too quickly though. Here's hoping she knows more than Mr. "I've watched ER too much". She also ordered more sun.. ? I thought that was just something your parents said when they think you're spending too much time in front of the computer! (and yes, I have TFT screens both at home and work so it's not that!)

Say no to WoW!

Long time no update but that's gonna change. I made a conscious decision and just stopped playing WoW. It was sucking too much of my free time that I usually spend with friends, family or television. And 10 years ago that might've been alright, but I'm almost 30 and supposed to be more mature than that!...

Who am I kidding ? :)

Quoting for the win!

Wanna hear something depressing and deep? Well, you're gonna:

Somehow your standard of living got stuck on survive.

Again my life has fallen into a comfortable weekly routine that I'm just going along with waiting for something to happen. First time I got this feeling I ended up travelling around the world. Second time I got it I ended up unemoployed. So I wonder what's in store for me this time... and oh yeah, quote by Jewel. Ofcourse.

Didn't Know It Was A Bad Thing

I tried donating blood the other day. Everytime I've done that I've had to fill in a yes/no form asking stuff like "have you been in africa" or "have you gotten a new tattoo" and stuff like that, basically make sure you haven't done anything that could change the composition of your blood since the last time you donated. I've never really paid that much attention to it (and I'm suppose to work at a lawfirm!). Well, there's one in there saying "Have you had a new sexual partner". Well, if you check the "yes"-box there, you're not allowed to donate blood for three months afterwards. FYI.

What's going on?

You know, I wish something REALLY exciting could happen so I can post something.. I mean, I've been Bush-bashing for over a year now so that's boring. And I could post about the terrible state of music when an idiotic & uncharacteristic song like "Money for nothing" is played all day here in sweden but it feels like I've done that enough too. Or maybe I'm just too busy playing World of Warcraft to notice what's going on.

Things that makes the internet great!

Isn't the Internet great? When pondering over "what makes the internet great" one thing that tops my list is stuff like this. Right now we have a TV show here in sweden dedicated to clips like that that. Gotta love the internet for all the laughs it's given me :)

Copy protection My Ass!

Now I'm pissed off! Since I've started playing WoW I've been living in my little bubble almost oblivious to the real world. So I had no idea the new Moby album had come out in sweden but when I walked passed the CD store and saw it I just got all excited, bought it and almost ran to work to play it. And what happens? To make it more difficult for the MP3 coders out there to steal the tracks they've made it so copyprotected that I can't play it on my computer! So here I am with a perfectly legal copy of a CD but still I have to download the MP3s from the internet so I can listen to it. This just pisses me! And it doesn't help knowing that some of the $24 (!!) I paid for this CD goes to creating anti-copying software that results in this crap. Damnit! If it wasn't a Moby-fan I'd ask for my money back!

My Very First..

Still WoW-ing all my free time away. Most interesting thing to happen recently was ... my first parking ticket!! Being a bit too stressed I made an "ass" out of "u" and "mption" and thought it was free parking from 8pm when in fact it was free parking from 9pm. So I got a parking ticket at 8:26, annoying that 34 minutes cost me 420 SEK, but it was a fair cop. Up'till now I was one of those people who are described in spy movies as a made up person without as much as a parking ticket. But now I'm not. How sad...

Hotel Rwanda

Have you seen "Hotel Rwanda"? Sometimes it's good to see these super-depressing movies - you get a good reality check on what's on important. Some stuff that seems really important just ... aren't ... and to quote the cameraman "I feel so ashamed". At seeing stuff like this on TV and the western world who's suppose to be more civilized not doing shit... when seeing super-depressing stuff like "Schindler's List" I can excuse myself that it wasn't in my lifetime. Can't hide behind that this time.

Egypt Week

Egypt week on "Discovery Channel", highly recommended! Way better, educational and informative than I though it'd be. One of the few upsetting programs was the one about the current fight for Egypt to get all their national treassures back from international museums. Kinda hard to argue why the rosetta-stone should be in London, huh?...

Routines

This is getting rediculous! My routine now is "wake up - go to work - work my ass off - go home - start wow - go to bed - wake up..." and so on! Everything else has taken a backseat! My apartment looks like crap, my fridge is empty and my friends and family don't even know if I'm alive half of the time since I never hear the phone and hardly ever update this place. But what can I do - WoW is way too addictive...

Where Did All The Time Go?

Where did all my free time go? Not only am I back to working 8-5 (as opposed to 9-ish to 4-ish as I've been doing the past few months on Pulsen since there was no work to do), but I also bought World of Warcraft which is really sucking up my free time! It's totally time consuming game and should have like a timer with a "max 6 hours per day" limit or something...

The last supper

Tonight we were able to get the old crew from my old company together for one last supper together. Since 4 of us have been laid off and some others will try their luck elsewhere this was probably the last time we all got together like this. Although I'll still be in touch with some of them, I doubt we'll ever be able to do this again. Unfortunately I was on call so I had to deal with coca cola all night and I went home way too early :(

But here are some pics so we can all remember it :)

Saw

I just saw "Saw". Really scary movie. Scary as in chilling. How far would one go to survive and for ones family? I wouldn't cut off my own foot, that's for sure. Not that I wouldn't want to, I just wouldn't be able to. But a pretty good movie and another proof you don't need that big budget to do a good movie. Then I saw "Code 46", one of the weirdest flics I've seen! Not good weird and not bad weird, just weird...

That's one more unproductive weekedend to the history books. Been a while since I've had one of those.

Systems check

One thing that the past weeks... no, make that two years, have taught me is the joy of waking up in the morning and the first systems check shows an itch you can't reach! I mean, if that's the extent of your physical and psychological state when waking up, you're doing very OK! In the past two years I've gone from physical highs like when I'd gotten 5 vaccination shots in preparation for my world tour to the physical low of salmonella sickness in Africa, the mental highs of sitting by the Danube with a cold beer on a hot sunny summer day to the mental low of facing long term unemployment and the ensuing almost paralyzing dyspepsia! After all of this, today I woke up and only had an itch I couldn't reach. :)

Funny images in my head

Got a funny image in my head ; Natalie Portman going to the unemployment agency and being asked "how much did your last job pay per month?". "Well I got 5 million for Star Wars Episode II and that was a very long photo shoot, 5 months so say 1 million bucks per month" :) I don't know what it's like in other countries though but here you get a percentage of what you used to make and I'm the kind of guy who thinks these weird thoughts...

And the "new" version of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" rocks!

Are things getting better?

Whenever I think about how close I was to being unemployed and all the shit that comes with it I can't help but to feel like a complete asshole. I'm almost 30 and I've been unemployed a full 3 days since my 15th birthday. Although I've had a few close calls, that's the fact. Compare that to my friend who's been unemployed a long, long time (3 years+). And he's got a house and family and stuff, I've just got me. So even though me being unemployed doesn't sound fun at all, other's have had it much worse. But still manage. Let's just hope I don't have to manage...

But today that all changed 'cause he's finally got a job! Congrats! :)

First day at a new job

Just finished my first day as a real employee at the lawfirm. And I wish I could say it was "same old, same old". But I can't, cause it wasn't. After my stomach was done playing circus for 2 hours and settled down I got into it and really enjoyed myself. It's a much better feeling actually working there than just being a hired gun. I'm just hoping it works out and it won't only be for 6 months, because seriously - how often do you really enjoy the place you're working at?! I was ok at my old work, but this will (hopefully) be much better!

Changing jobs

Ok, so why was I that depressed over 2005? Well, except that my health was seriously degrading by the day I was told that I was being laid off. It wasn't a big shock since a couple of us haven't had anything to do at work in the past few months and it was just a matter of time until something had to be done. But all of a sudden it was there, right in front of me. A few more paid months and then I'd actually have to go to the unemployment agency. For the first time in my life. But oh no, I wouldn't have it. As soon as I could I called The Man at the lawfirm that I've worked at now and then and got a job there for atleast 6 months. So for the next months I'll be getting double pay and doing a job I know how to do in the one building with the most beautiful women in the world. Am I complaining?... not really!

Oh yeah, my health is stabilising...

Getting laid. Off that is

So my services are no longer needed at Pulsen, the computer consultant company I've been working at since summer 2001. Can't say I'm surprised since I haven't been making alot of money for the company the past few months. And I can't be pissed off about it since they gave me the opportunity to travel the world. But it's still depressing!

Miserable new year

So how's 2005 been for you? For me it's been terrible. Only 2002 beet this year when it came to bad starts, but we'only 2 weeks in here so I don't know where this'll end. Not gonna bore you with details, but you know me - "it could be worse", "it's not as bad as it seems" and "it'll be ok" are my mottos when stuff goes does the drain. :)

America - f*ck yeah!

I finally got a chance to see "Team America". What can I say? Genius! Hilarious! Absolutely mindblowingly fun! But what else is there to say about a movie that starts the romantic song with "I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the mark when he made Pearl Harbor"?! Just go see it!!

And here are some pictures from the party.

Unhappy New Year

What a depressing week this have been. Hearing all the tragic stories of peoples fate and losses in the disaster, some makes you cry just reading about them. And yesterday I tuned in for the reality Discovery show "American Casino" that usually offers some comic relief with the banter between Ninya and Michael Tato. Unfortunately this was the episode when Michael actually dies! How depressing was that, I liked the little guy! Oh well, tonight is the 8 year anniversary of our gaming clan so BIIIIG party tonight. Fortunately I've got NOTHING on the schedule tomorrow :)

Right People For The Right Job?

I'm one of those people who think that the best way to see if a person is well suited for his/her job, especially if it involves management, is to see how he/she performs his/her job under extreme preassure, when things are going to hell and people's lifes are in the balance. By that meassure there are two people who should be fired. Obvious # 1 is Bush that didn't do anything when he heard about the plane hitting the WCT and still nothing after the second one hit. And for a person who occupies the job as, as the americans call it, "the most powerful man in the world" that's a pretty sucky thing to do.

But the close runner-up is now Laila Freivalds, our secretary of state. When I first heard about the disaster in asia when I got up on sunday 26th I kinda understood it was serious as hell but knew there was nothing I could do and was pretty sure the powers that be did all they could. Little did I know that meant going to the theater and not showing up for work until 11 am monday morning which is what she did. And now she's seriously saying they didn't know how bad it really was! If I get a call that we have a hard drive failure on our primary server in the weekend, I'm not gonna be able to relax or enjoy anything without trying to find out just how bad it is! But on TV there was Lottie Knutson being interviewed for a long time answering alot of questions and doing her best to be as responsible as she could and became like a familiar face as the "go-to" girl on this thing in sweden. Who was she? She's in charge of public relations & information at one of our travelling agencies! But she knew how bad it was and desperately pleeded for help already on sunday evening. That's pretty bad...

Someone who's perfect for his job by this meassure however is LeRoy Cain, flight director at NASA when Columbia was suppose to come back. When he feared the worst he did exactly what he was supposed to do and kept the place cool.

Me? Well I proved in Copenhagen I can handle the stress and improvise myself out of a terrible situation...