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10 years ago today that I got that horrible phonecall. 10 years ago today that my friend died in his flat. On the one hand it seems like ages ago considering all I’ve done since then (travelled the world, got married, had a son, built a house, changed jobs twice). But on the other hand it feels like yesterday – sitting in his flat enjoying some DVD’s or the latest episode of “Enterprise”. And the memories from arranging his (kick ass!) funeral.
I haven’t really decided to go totally off the Facebook grid ’cause I still enjoyed getting information on what’s happening with friends and stuff. But I really do hate their Timeline thing.
So for now I’ve removed all of my friends (except my sis and wife) while I clean up my Timeline. And I may add everyone back later, not sure. But kudos to Facebook that has a feature for downloading all the info they have on you, I didn’t know they offered that. I downloaded it and it was over 30 megs. Let’s hope that includes alot of videos that I’ve “Liked” over the years or that is alot of information!!
Yeah, it’s that time again – time for abig whine post about some small little thing that ruins bigger things.
I’ve always liked Dice´s products. From their early pinball games to Battlefield, I liked them. Ok most of them. So when BF3 was announced I was ofcourse a little bit excited although the first trailer was very annoying (more annoying sound than exciting visual). Then I saw the gameplay trailers and it looks sweet as hell. And for the past month EA have gone all out on the PR for the launch of BF3, here they are marketing it with the “Made in Stockholm”-slogan. And the launch is just two weeks away from Modern Warfare 3, another hyped shooting game. But when I got home last night I bought it through their own Origin-system (“Steam”-wannabe), downloaded it and got ready to rock.
That’s when the excitement died. Was the graphics not good enough? .. nope, it was good. Was the story terrible? Nope, it’s good. Was the multiplayer maps sucky or buggy? Nope.
After spending all this time, money, work and ideas creating this behemoth of a title, with the best graphics engine ever, they missed out on a very small tiny detail… making it easy for the user! At first I couldn’t launch the game. It doesn’t launch at all actually cause it starts my Internet Explorer (which is NOT my default browser!) to a website that I have to log into. And when I’m logged in my browser reports that the active x controlers are causing issues and the certificate isn’t valid for this https site and when all of that is done I get to the “launch campaign” and click it.. and then it downloads a game launcher that I can’t install in MSIE! When trying through Chrome there’s no technical issues.
But technical issues aside – who came up with the idea “to start the sing player campaign, you log into origin, you start the game, browser directs you to a page where you have to log into origin again, and then click ‘launch campaign’ and install another third party addon and then the game starts”?!? What the f*ck is that about!? I know I know, it’s probably their version of DRM to make sure pirates have a harder time to launch it but don’t they get it!? Every time you have some kind of DRM system, especially like this, all you do is encourage people to use the pirated stuff!!…
And so after 6 years (10 if you count the time as a consultant) here åt Vinge I am now starting the last week here before I am off to Carema Care.
It’s bitter-sweet kinda as it should be! Vinge has been a great employer. Some really Nice benefits here that I am going to miss but I really have to move on with my career and this feels like a good step. We’ll know in about 6 months if it was a terrible step! (that’s the trial-period here in Sweden for you and your employer. If during that time one of you thinks it isn’t working out you just say thanks but no thanks)
But if for some reason it isn’t working I’m fairly sure I’d be welcome back here 🙂
And during this last week I’ll be working 4pm ’till midnight or more if needed. Cause we’re reinstalling all the computers here one last time (for Me). So kinda going out with a bang 🙂
I know I haven’r written anything here for almost 20 days but I’ve hade my hands full!
Last Friday was midsummer here in Sweden. And we hade planned to go out to old Sorunda for the good old celebrations there They home to my parents for family dinner and maybe stay the night.
The kindergarten called H today at work. They said she must come pickup Sam because apparently he has an infection in his eye.
The weekend wasn’t as kickass as I would’ve liked. Mostly because of that lame Formula 1 race! They blew the biggest excitement even before it started by starting the race behind the safety car! Having that lineup, with red bulls bad KERS, it would’ve been awesome! But nope! Then red flag for 2 hours waiting for better weather?? I thought these guys earned millions because it was dangerous not so they could only drive in sunshine! Nah that race was lame! Go go Valencia!! 🙂
This weekend was a pretty good weekend for me. Not very unique in any way which can only mean one thing… that my life is pretty good right now!
We had guests over on saturday, a couple who are friends with Helena and by default me too. I like ’em, they’re pretty funny and share alot of our opinions about what it’s like to “moving along, living your life having a blast and BAM! you’re pregnant and your life changes drastically to become about this one little thing all day every day”. We had dinner, talked alot, tried to get the kids to bed (their
daughter is almost a year old so sam has 4 months on her) and then we woke them up by watching “Battle: Los Angeles”. I don’t know what to make about that movie… it was the least original film I’ve ever seen I think. It was kinda like the people who wrote it and produced it had played too much Modern Warfare and Crysis 2 (although Crysis 2 wasn’t even released when the movie was made, but still). Or if you’d prefer movie-analogy – mix Independance Day, Blackhawk Down and season 2 of
Stargate Universe and you have the entire movie right there.
Then on sunday we had a looooong breakfast on our lawn, just soaking in the sun and the good feeling of life at that moment! Then in the car for an hour to drive out to my parents to celebrate my dad’s birthday and we combined that with mothers day. I also helped dad along on the greenhouse they’re building which is identical to the one we’ve built for us and we helped our neighbours with. So I had a bit of advantage there 🙂 Also got to enjoy my mothers cooking one more time!
Then an hour home, get Sam to sleep and then it was time to watch the F1 race. Although Vettel won again it sure was good to see a Ferrari in the front for a while!!
Yeap, got nothing to complain about here!
The sales rep at the company contracted to build our house is trying to rush things so we can move in in early august. Unfortunately some stuff are slowing it down. I hate old mail system, takes 2 days just to send a letter… but if everything goes ok we’re in for a rushed ride.
We’re about to go up to check the building lot again and the surroundings. And if everything goes according to plan, there should be an interesting update here later today …
Update: Yeap, it did. Now we’re engaged 🙂
Happy new year everyone! Personally I’m not sure how I can ever beat 2008 but gonna try 🙂
Yesterday I went home to one of my best friends to do… absolutely nothing! Just hanging out, playing some x-box, talking through some more or less unimportant stuff… Anyway, at like 1am I thought I’d better get my ass home since it’s a long drive and so off I went. It had gotten pretty chilly over the night and I was going a bit too fast through a twisty part of E18, but it’s got 2 lanes and no traffic so no problem criss-crossing between the lanes. That was until there was an aqueduct, a pretty good left blind turn and all of a sudden one lane was closed for construction and at that point I lost the grip at about 90 kph thanks to the chilly road. But you know what? Thanks to me being a complete slacking computer geek I made it with two inches to spare! Me being a slacker = me still driving with winter tires. Me being a computer geek = I’ve mastered the art of drifting thanks to Need for Speed. Ok, the obligatory skid testing to get a license in Sweden might have helped too. So after sliding through all of that and very nearly going off the road I calmly drove the rest of the way home to contemplate my brush with death and said “missed me!”.
2 weeks ago we had minus degrees, we had snow and it was winter. Today I was walking around in the city in a t-shirt and wasn’t the least bit cold. But I’m not complaining, the sooner we get this transition over with the sooner my allergies will settle down. Although it’s pretty much under control at the moment.
Btw, LOVE this commercial. It’s an ad for a Swedish internet provider and their slogan is “Our customers are used to going fast”. If I wasn’t already a customer I’d switch to them just for this commercial…
This weather situation is reallt gotten me worried man. I mean over the past 10 years the freezing cold & snow has arrived later and later every year but atleast it’s gotten freezing cold and we’ve had snow. So far this season I’ve yet to see the temperature go below zero and except for the blizzard in november and the 10 minutes of snow 2 days before christmas I haven’t really seen any snow at all. And it’s the 5th of january! I mean all of these “global warming alerts” have said we’re in trouble in like 50 years or something, but the way it’s now it’s gonna be in 5 years.
What’s so weird about Christmas is how much I, and alot of other people, hate the build-up but totally enjoy it from 24th to 31st! The build-up is ofc, having to go through all your family tree checking who wants what, then doing the actual shopping and try to squezze your way through the stores and everything, and all the christmas decorations and stuff and ofc all the preperations at work planning the holidays and making sure all lawyers have remote accessibility… it’s all a big hassle! But from 24th I just shut everything out, go home to my folks and enjoy a few days of calm and just relax all the way to the new year! I took out 4 days of vacation and managed to get 12 days off from work which means alot of time with my family and catching up on stuff.
Hope you have a very merry Christmas!!
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 🙂
Yesterday sweden pulled of a first ever by winning both Olympic gold medal and world championship in ice hokey!! I guess that means we’re really good at it, huh? Well, any excuse to throw a party I guess 🙂
They are doing it again! The Bush-led government has taken it open themselves to decide that every plane passing through the states has to have an american armed security agent on board. With September 11th fresh in mind it might sound like a reasonable idea. But common, what if every country who’s had about 2.000 of their citizens killed by terrorist attacks insisted on this? Imagine a British Airways plane going from Tel Aviv passing through Heathrow going to New York. That’d be three security agencies wanting to have people on that flight! Another case of them enforcing their laws on other countries which kinda was the whole background why September 11th happened in the first place. I guess they didn’t get the message. And let’s be practical here – what kinda job would that be, sitting on airplanes all the time going from a to b not being allowed to sleep, constantly being vigilant!? Not even diplocatic couriers have it that bad.
Thought I’d share one of my favorite parts of the Primo Levi book:
“At dawn the barbed wire was full of children’s washing hung out in the wind to dry. Nor did they forget the diapers, the toys, the cushions and the hundred other small things which mothers remember and which children always need. Would you not do the same? If you and your child were going to be killed tomorrow, would you not give him something to eat today?”