So who would have thought that Sweden would ever beat Brazil in football? I mean in real life football, not any cyberversion? I never thought that’d happend. But yesterday “we” did! And I’m proud to be a swede when they did it. Hockey WC gold in all honor, but beating Brazil in a quarter final felt a hell of a lot better. And the way they did it… way to go girls!! (or do they prefer “women”?) Now let’s see if they’ll be greeted in the same way when they come back as the guys in 1994 were. Even though Sweden is a model of equality between the sexes (we even changed our constitution so that a woman can and will inherit the crown!), I doubt it. Unless ofcourse they win the entire thing. Which they will!
Go see “Bowling for Columbine”. I’ve always been critical of the sloppy gun regulations and the attitude of the NRA in the states. But after seeing this documentary I can relax knowing that me and Moby aren’t the only ones who thinks something is pretty screwed up “over there”. Although it was pretty one-sided, biased, Moore was set to get Wal Mart and Heston, but what I really liked was when he just went off to places not knowing what he’d find, like in Canada. And after this documentary, you gotta like Canada 🙂
Do you watch CNBC? I very rarely do since it’s 99% financial news and I’m simply not that into it. But I accidentally flipped it on on thursday and heard what may be the best quote this year. “Hurricane Isabell closes Washington and shuts down the federal government… will anyone notice?”. I thought that was hilarious. And if you’re wondering why I’m not updating as much as I used to… recent events have made it less fun posting stuff here, hopefully that’ll pass and I’ll get into the spirit of things again.
Do you like “what if”-ing? I love it. Thinking about those small little events in your life that have had a huge impact. Like “what if I hadn’t by accident heard of that computer course at Thorildplans that turned out to be the best year of school ever” and “what if I hadn’t wasted a year in college”, “what if I had gotten the first job I applied to” (it was just a freak accident I didn’t get it!), “what if I had taken up the offer of joining the old MinDator crew at ITF”, what if… Had any of these things happened I wouldn’t be where I am today. It might have been better, it may have been worse, I have no idea. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I like “Dead Zone” so much – they are really great at “what if”-ing. They visualize the possible consequences of the choices the characters are forced to make. I’ve exceeded my download ratio, TWICE, downloading this show that I’m liking more and more. More thoughtful and deep shows like this please!
This morning I woke up and saw one of the best interviews ever on CNN. One of the guys responsible for the bombing on Bali got his judgement and it wasn’t the death penalty which many would’ve thought. So CNN got a live interview with an aussy parent of one of the people who died and tried to get him to say “they should just kill him!”. But he quite simply stated that “I’m not a believer in the death penalty, it’s not a part of my philosophy and that’s the way I raised my children as well, so I’m content with this judgement”. And the poor interviewer did her best provoking him, even interrupted his sentences (no pun intended), no luck there. So much for death penalty being implemented to make the relatives feel better!
Over the past week, the media has once again shown its lack of good journalism when it comes to reporting about stuff on the web! A 31 year old ex. marine web-dated a person. It got serious, he told his family he was going to Britain to meet this 19 year old girl and off he went. They then travelled together to Germany through Paris, her stopping by a pay-phone to call her parents to say everything was ok. Oh, and the girl in this case was really 12 years young. And that’s as far as the facts takes us and speculation begins. CNN tried to keep an open mind about it, but when he was arrested they started the “predators on the internet” talks. And “Aftonbladet” in sweden didn’t even tell the facts but told the story so it sounded like a straight up kidnapping. And without knowing exactly what happened I can’t really defend the guy, but I gotta make some pointers here. Did he really know she was 12? I’m pretty sure young people today do what we did which was to lie about our age to seem more mature. And especially on the ‘Net, it’s really easy to get away with it too! I can very well imagine them two in a chat room with her saying she was 19 or something! And when they finally did meet IRL, he must’ve gotten the point she wasn’t that old, but so? What 12 year old hasn’t wanted to run away from home but doesn’t have a good alternative plan? This girl got one served up, what’s to suggest she didn’t leave on her own will? I can’t see any way that a person can be unwillingly dragged through three airports, with all the security they have today, without being able to call for help in any form. And is there a law out there against 12 year old people running away from home and travelling abroad?
But the dude was arrested right away in Germany, and he has a prior for sexual assault, so he might have done something wrong somewhere along the line, but I’m atleast giving him the benefit of a doubt and I’m really interested to see what he’s charged with, cause as far as I know, nothing he did was illegal. And for all the “what tha hell was he thinking!?” people out there, go see “Léon”, I’m pretty sure this guy had.
Have you ever seen “She Spies”? It’s one of those rediculous TV shows that doesn’t do much seriously what so ever, and if it wasn’t for Ms. Henstridge I wouldn’t watch it all. But it’s got some good moments like “Hey, this isn’t a movie!” – “No it’s not, if it was we’d have bigger sets”. Anyway, we’ve done some tourist stuff today. But there’s not much of that to do when you come here totally off-season
Another thing that’s great about south america – they have lots of good TV stations here. Sony Entertainment with all sit-com’s, Fox, Warner channel, AXN and so on. Yesterday I was flipping over and happened to see an american show called “The Dead Zone” (yes, based on Stephen King’s work). Pretty damn good and lots of Star Trek references too. But what do you expect when Michael Piller is involved. Although I’ve only seen one episode, it showed alot of promise. Just the way the end scene of the episode (“Precipitate”) I caught was filmed like, slow-mo, silent, just amazing!!
I’m about to hit the bed for a couple of hours sleep until I have to go to the airport (AGAIN!), but I felt I had to write this before I forget it. I spent my only really free day here in sweden (sunday) watching the first season of “Babylon 5”. I’m not sure how many people saw it during the 90’s, I had trouble following it since it’s built like a 5 year novel. Which is why it’s so great on DVD! Anyways, that show was truly awesome! Some bad acting at times, sometimes the CGI effects were TOO CGI, but one thing that always had great standard was the writing. JMS did an awesome job with that, and also getting the continuity for a 5 year arc that accurate was nicely done! Not to mention the great moral lessons we get from it about stuff like consequence, responsibility, “one person can make a difference”, “who watches the watchers” – those kinds of things. Really great show and I hope another one like it comes pretty soon. Cause the new Star Trek show seems to do everything right. Except the writing…
Well, I’m off to a former east state in a while and I doubt I’ll be able to get any updates up. But I’ll do my best!
You know I don’t take alot of things in life seriously, right? As a matter of fact, there are very very few things in life that I can’t joke or laugh about. I’m not sure if that’s a good trait or not. But I saw the inverted versions on the TV the other day. People that can’t take a joke. People that enforce the political correctivness-rules. It was another E! “True Hollywood Story”, this time about the Dice-man, Andrew Clay. You know, “Ford Fairlane”, “Dice-man Cometh”, “No Apologies” etc, one of the most hilarious people on the planet, one of the few comic acts than can sell out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row. His jokes are … well, vulgar, extreme and coarse. But he does it in a hilarious way. How many people can get away with a comment like “Sorry I made you clean the bathroom, but who did all the work in bed?”. And then there are the people who can’t take jokes like that, who think it’s immoral. One woman even, quite seriously, said that you can’t listen to his act and NOT be influenced. Riiiiight.
Got another lecture in tolerance and being open minded (I’m pretty good at both). Saw the “E! True Story” of Ginger Lynn. Most of you will say “who?” because most of the people I know either don’t watch porn or deny that they watch pornos, but now we’re talking early & mid 80’s. And if I wasn’t a huge computer game freak (she was in Wing Commander 3) and if I didn’t have this huge space in my head that I fill with useless info I wouldn’t know who she was either. But seing this was 10 times more interesting than seing any “E! True Story” with Julia Roberts or someone booring or plain like that. And just about anything featuring Ron Jeremy is hilarious by definition!
As usual, no update yesterday so nobody will confuse my life with an April fools… which it kinda is sometimes… Anyway, what’s on my mind? Commercials! Since I have a british mother, I’ve spent some time over there early in my life and one thing that really seperated the english TV from swedish is commercials!
We haven’t had TV commercials in sweden for that long, maybe about 15 years now. And I think it took them this long to learn how to do it nicely, in a funny way, so funny you’d want more and start visiting their website to learn what’s new… I’m ofcourse talking about Vasakronan who started a fake reality-show called “The Office”! “No space, no coffe, slow Internet connection, no smoke-section”, LOVING IT! A guy even voted out his own wife 🙂 They have a website here, Kontoret.nu. Hilarious! Maybe there is hope! But I don’t know, all these bad detergent-soap-toathpaste commercials have left alot to make up for!
How are you enjoying seeing the war unfold on your TV screens at home? I had a very weird weekend. On Friday it was Star Trek movie premiere, dinner, then bed, then on Saturday it was F1 qualifying and then… 6 hours of Sky News / CNN watching. Then off on a date, bed early then up early on Sunday to watch the F1 race. Then after that, at about 9 am, when I was tucked down in my soffa I… didn’t do anything but watch Sky News / CNN for about 12 hours! Beginning with the early seige of Umm Qasr and ending with Pentagon breifing following the POW tapes. And it really felt like this war didn’t really exist in any real place, it was just in my TV! Really weird feelings. But it was happening, like that POW tape showed. The two funniest incidents all day was after the morning seige when they interviewed Nick Lerma, the big-ass seargent with plenty of toys. Testosterone squared! Then seeing some Iraqi soldiers hunting two imaginary downed allied airman in the shores of Baghdad. It shouldn’t be funny, it was a blatent disregard of the Geneva convention about the treatment of POW’s, but it was funny seeing them go on for two hours while seeing the “No coalition airplanes missing!” sign at the bottom. And it kinda reminded me about “Allo, allo” with the search for the missing british airmen 🙂
But with that tape on the evening it all ended with a big downer. Once again disregarding Geneva conventions about POW’s but it was really… sad seeing these totally lost techs who just took a wrong turn… and it was something emotional about this one quote:
I didn’t come here to shoot, I came here to fix things.
Here’s hoping it ends well…
Perhaps it’s just because I have this incredible need to fill my head with trivial and/or useless information, but I love VH1 “Pop-up Videos”. I think the show is absolutely hilarious! You can always count on them to combine relevant trivia with something useful and then to finish off with something funny. Favorite so far is the pop-up version of “The Stroke”!
And speaking of irrelevant trivia – have you noticed the t-shirt in the background in Kelly Osbourne’s version of “Papa Don’t Preach” that says “Italians Do It Better”? I’ve always thought it was a homage to Madonna, and the fact that she actually did that song alot better than Kelly. But in the pop-up video to Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” they pretty much zoom in on that T-shirt that Madonna is actually wearing in the video. So it was an intended homage, just not the way I thought. These are the kinds of irrelevant trivia I fill my head with. And that’s why I stand a chance at Trivial Pursuit.
I hope everybody, atleast everyone in Sweden, saw the Melodyfestival finale last night? I actually liked it, especially the song that won. But the biggest reason I liked it was the hosts. Mark and Jonas. I don’t know what it is about Mark Levengood, but he’s got that Zen-like aura that Moby has. Just totally cool. And Jonas is absolutely hilarious! And both of them are pretty good at making fun of themselves and doesn’t take themselves too seriously, a quality I like in people. Although Jonas could have done a better job of actually hosting the thing instead of just reading from a script, it was still one of the best ones I’ve seen. And let’s just hope the Euro-wide finale is as fun as it was last year!
Today, 24 reminded me of why I started loving that show! You might remember a couple of months ago when I got so hooked by it I downloaded it all from the Net. Well, when the second seasons started, the first thought was “how are they gonna top that!?”. And at first they didn’t. At first it was really bad and the entire sub-plot of Kim hiding in dumpsters again felt very old. But today’s episode, #15 (10pm-11pm), was absolutely amazing. Very, very well written, very well executed and intercut between the different people talking with everyone, and at the end… watching that bomb go off was just … frightening … and the president talking about going to war, given the current political climate in the world …
(hope I didn’t spoil the second season two much, but saying that the bomb goes off doesn’t say much!)
How come that as soon as a person hints at having something really bad in their baggage that they’d “rather not talk about”, that makes them 10 times more interesting? I don’t know if that’s just me or what, perhaps I’ve lived such a sheltered life that I can’t really complain, but as I was watching the “oh my god, I can’t believe this fairy tale” girls on “Joe Millionaire” I started noticing the woman who made the least ruckus. And then during one of their dinners she went on the defensive that she’d rather not talk about this and that and being totally different than everyone else and she very quickly moved up to my top spot for that show’s winner ’cause she was just so down to earth and unpretencious!… and after seeing some more episodes of it it’s looking pretty good for her 🙂
Another thing about “Joe Millionaire” I really like is the editing! I’m a pretty good observer and obviously the producer and editor was as well because it’s really nicely put together. But unfortunately it suffers from something alot of shows like this suffer from – extended and extensive amounts of replays. Like before a commercial break we see what will happen in the next segment and after the break we saw what happened in the previous one. It’s like they only have 30 minutes of material but an hour to fill. And that’s kind of annoying.
And I’ll end this with a slam-dunk, “not so bright”-metaphore – “He’s not extraneously intellectual“. LOL! If that’s not spinning, I don’t know what is. 🙂
As you may know I’ve come to hate… loath… reality shows, or docusoaps. I’m so totally tired of them. But keeping up my “like to be proven wrong”-theme I gave another show a chance to prove me wrong. “Joe Millionaire”. The very talked about show in the states that took a $19.000/year construction worker and turned him into Mr Slick that had just inherited $50 million and was looking for a woman to share his life and money with. At first I thought it sounded really unfair to the chicks who thought they’d hit the jackpot, only for the guy to tell them “hey, I’ve got no money” but after seeing two episodes… shit, those girls seem to deserve it. You may have picked up on the fact I love women, but in this show they’ve really been able to bring out the worst in them. All the back-stabbing, catfights and “does my ass look big” was there. I ended up hating every one of them… except one, but that’s because I have a thing for chicks in charge… And then Jay Leno proved once again why I never watch his show (except when I zap through the channels). He compared the “sorry babe, I’m actually not rich” to the reversed role for a woman to tell a guy “sorry, these breasts aren’t real”. I mean, common?
I’m certainly not one for breast size, and I’m very confident no other guy anywhere has ever fallen in love with any woman because of her breasts! Although I’m not sure how many women have fallen in love with a guy’s money either, but I still didn’t like the comparison! I guess because both of them makes us sound primitive and goes back to the old animal instincts inside everyone – “a female is looking for a male that can provide for her and her offspring” and “a male is looking for a female who can nurture his offspring”. Oh well, I’ve never been one for animal instincts, I’m totally defying the instinct for breeding!
I am really getting annoyed with people abusing the expression “world class”! As I understand it, the expression is suppose to be applied to someone, some team or something who excels in a minor league, good enough to be in a better league, even the world championship. Right? It wasn’t meant to be applied to hockeyplayers playing in the hockey World Championship, drivers racing in the Formula 1 World Championship, handball players in the handball championship… you get the point right?! Everytime I watch any of the above events I always hear a comment like “oh that is just world class!”… OFCOURSE IT IS – IT’S THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP! I’d be disappointed if people there weren’t world class! It’s just damn annoying!! It’s popped up atleast four times during the handboll World Championship down in Portugal…
I happened to catch 60 minutes today. One of the stories was, appropriately, about something I’ve talked about on this page in the past week – TV shows. And not in a good way. The story was about how different TV networks in the states market themselves and their shows – some target the usual “age 18-49”-group, and some don’t. The actual point of the entire story almost got by me because I was so upset at hearing how 2 network execs, 2 researchers in the field as well as a PR firm exec sat and debated, without any emotion, about how shows are created to appeal certain demographics, and how “strong” these demographics where when it comes to sales and advertisement. Like “people at 55 may watch more TV than a 24 year old, but the 24 year old spends more money so we’re gonna go after him/her instead”. Am I being too naive in thinking that TV-making wasn’t as capitalistic as movie-making is? Listening to these people it actually seemed worse! One of them actually mentioned “Ed” as a show they created to target the more intelligent 30 something white viewer with a deep wallet. I was quite offended at hearing that, not that I fall into that category (although I hope to one day), but at how pathetic it sounds. I used to think of TV making as a form of art, but after seeing this, I’m having my doubts.
But that’s just one more point in my “evidence that human values are being replaced with $-signs”-list that is getting quite long now. Remember people – in Starfleet there is no such thing as currency!
(I wish I could say “Star Trek”, but after the Ferengis it’s all gone to hell)