After this disaster with the woman at work I really needed some cheering up and fate deliverd! We were having a conference/kick-off for everyine in the IT departments of all offices and we had some of these abstract project of how to improve our routines and the way we work. You know how I feel about abstract shit like that, and it’s not like we’re stressed out. And one of the consultants that was gonna start a speech opened up by asking “which one of you is Kristoffer?”, and I’m like “shit what did I do now” and then he says “my girlfriend anna says hi”. Anna is a childhood friend of mine, my parents and hers have been really tight. But when we hit our 20’s we kinda lost touch with each other. I haven’t seen her in ages and haven’t even spoken to her in over a year. But now she has my number and we will certainly meet up and catch up!
On monday I was very bummed out over her reaction and giving me more shit than I’ve taken from even my ex girlfriends and yesterday I was pretty depressed too. But now I’m more on the “angry and disappointed” side of things. I’ve gone through the entire thing a gazillion times and I still don’t know where I went wrong. She was the one that opened the door to her private life, she was the one calling me and talking about stuff (ok, granted I do work in the helpdesk so ofcourse she’s doing the calling). The only thing I may have missed was that she wanted to close that door, never picked up any vibes like that but that’s apparently the case. So for now I’m writing this off as misunderstanding and going with another classic quote from Dante – “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”…
And then I went down to one of our newest lawyers and after clearing up her mailproblems quietly said to myself “women are still the most amazing thing in the world!”…
Remember a few months ago when I mentioned I had gotten into a moral dilemma – I had, through no fault of my own, gotten information about someone I care about not being that happy where she is. I eventually decided that if she wants to talk about it I’ll let her, but I won’t bring it up.
And last week it happened again – I accidentally saw a private message to her that kinda hinted that she was now really, really depressed at work and was even considering applying for a new job. Same moral dilemma, but with one difference – her boyfriend is overseas for a year. So I offered my shoulder to cry on, and thereby admitting I had seeen this… and she freaked. I mean _freaked_! Not only was she pissed off at the fact that I knew this but also because this was none of my business. Under normal circumstances she’d be right… but in this case she was the one that opened up her private life to me when she was heartbroken when her ex had cheated on her and the hell she was going through. Back then I offered my shoulder to cry on and that worked out well because 2 months later they were back together. But this time she went ballistic and the only thing I see I did wrong here was that I cared. Even efter she said no to going out with me and even after they got back together I still cared. It even got so bad she told me never to talk to her again, which makes it really hard to explain myself.
Which only proves an old saying – nice guys do finish last. Maybe if I wasn’t such a nice guy, maybe if I had cheated on her and moved overseas for my careers sake, maybe then I’d be the kinda guy that gets a woman like that.
This is enough to make me depressed for a very very long time. I just hope it blows over, but I seriously doubt it..
You know what’s really starting to bug me – the people standing at the exits of the trainstations trying to give you a magazine (in stockholm it’s Metro or City). I mean if they were just there trying to give it to you that’s one thing but they’ve gotten more and more agressive. And one or two wouldn’t be bad but I pass 6-7 or sometimes 9 of these on my way to work every morning. And the most annoying thing is… I’ve already read it on the train!! I’m gonna go ahead and get some t-shirts printed up with a “I don’t want your Metro or City!” and give away on the trains…
Things are good when that’s the extent of your problems…
So today it was election in sweden. Again. For the past elections I haven’t really known what to vote for, and me almost being unemployed last year with all the emotional stress that causes it was even harder this year. It seems that if you have a job and everything is ok, then blue is the way to go. But if you’re knocked down for some reason, the reds are good…
So I ended up voting for the tree-huggers…
On monday it was september 11th again. I almost missed it had it not been for every media pointing it out. If you look at it objectively there’s no real reason why the entire world should feel so much about an event like that. But somehow we do. On CNN they had a brutal special feature – you could download 2 hour CNN coverage from 8:50 to 10:50 “as it happened”. That was scary!!
And the day after, what does TV4 do? Show “Airplane” with the wonderful line “They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting themselves into!”… nice timing…
Yesterday I had decided to buy a new cell phone. I did my homework and decided to buy a Ericsson Z550i. I checked up where I could buy them pretty cheap and also had them in stock NOW! ANd that was Elgiganten, one of our biggest electonics warehouses. When I got there they didn’t have any in the display shelf so I had to take a number for the information desk dealing with phones. After waiting 15 minutes it was my turn and the guy told me “they are so new we don’t have them on display yet!”, then he punched in some stuff on the computer and gave me a postit with a number on it. “Go to the cashier and give her this number”. Ok, so I did, and you guessed it – take a number. After only 10 minutes of waiting it was my turn, gave her the note, she punched the computer a bit, charged my credit card and gave me a receipt and said “ok, go over there, that’s where they have the actual product!”. So I went over there and… yeap, take a number. 15 minuters after that I had my phone.
Should it really take 45 minute to go to a huge store like this to buy a phone when you know exactly what phone you want and you know they have it in stock?… or am I just a bit too much of a perfectionist for this?
Btw, tribute to Steve Irwin.
Apparently it’s election year this year. I’d almost missed it, cause I’m used to it being 10 times more obvious and more posters and stuff everywhere you go and everything you read, but it’s been pretty slow so far this year. But the ones who I think have the best ones yet is our environmental party. Their entire PR campaign is just irony and sarcasm. “Nudles are still cheap, so we don’t need to raise the financial support for students”, “I’m not hooked on oil, I can quit whenever I want”, “All love is good – as long as they don’t wanna get married!” and then there’s one regarding our policy with refugees but that’s lost in the translation I’m afraid…
Interesting thing happened the other day as I was going home on the train. My cell phone rang and as usual I answer since I’m on call and have to answer. And as I’m explaining to this clueless lawyer how to install a new printer a guy comes up to me and asks me to hang up. Why? Becuase there’s a ban on cell phones on commuting trains now – apparently? I had no idea they did that, but I politely informed him that these things are in the same category as “give up your seat to an elderly so they don’t have to stand”, it’s more of a recommendation & courtesy than actually being illegal. He didn’t like that but couldn’t argue and left me alone. And the guy was sitting like 10 meters away from me so don’t know how me talking on the cell annoyed him…
But generally I agree – sitting next to someone who’s talking on the phone with their friend talking about stuff I have no interest what so ever about is damn annoying…
I’m so lazy that I haven’t done my laundry in a few weeks. And then i realised that “hey, I’m going to scotland on monday, wouldn’t hurt to have some clean clothes for that”. But I’m so lazy, and my schedule is totally full, that instead I went out and bought new clothes… I’m such a guy…
Hate to sound boring but there really is nothing happening. Working and playing WoW is pretty much it right now. But I’ll break that pattern this weekend when I’ll be busy doing other stuff and then head off to Scotland to check what’s happening with the relatives over there. Oh, gay pride week again but for once I haven’t noticed it at all!
As I’ve said so many times, it’s the little things in life that I really enjoy! Today I had to go into work and move my office abit (I knew I had to do, just pushed it as far as I could!) and it sucks having to go into work during your holiday, right? Well it only took an hour. Then I spent an hour in Kungsträdgården enjoying an old style vanilla ice cream and when going home I took a huge detour around the central parts of stockholm. And everyone who’s been there this time of year knows why.
I’m on holiday right now from work. That means I’m just sitting at home doing all the things I usually don’t have time for since I can’t be bothered to go anywhere. So today my schedule (not as bad as it sounds!) said “donate blood!”. So I filled in the “free parking” note that we blood donors get, took the car up there and got tapped for a pint. Then I got back to the car and … yeap, got a parking ticket! Why? Because I hadn’t put the not up against the windshield! It was in the passenger seat so whoever that parking attendant was should have seen it, but nope. THat cost me 300 SEK 🙁
Oh boy, have I gotten myself into a moral dilemma now. As I was doing disaster recovery of a crashed computer I scanned the documents to see which were salvagable. Nothing new about that. Only this computer used to belong to one of the people in human resources. And as I was going through documents one caught my eye since it was about someone I consider a friend and it was about her expressing some unhappiness with her workgroup she was working in and some stuff she wasn’t happy with. At that point I closed it and said “salvaged!” without reading any specifics. But I kept thinking about it and here’s the dilemma – do I talk to her about these things in an attempt to make her feel better or try to be supportive, and thereby telling her I’ve seen a document I probably shouldn’t have seen or read? Or do I play stupid and act like I don’t know what’s bothering her?… I’ll see what happens, if I do end up in a remotely deep conversation with her I guess I’ll have to bring it up.
31 years old. Or 30-something… man I’m getting too old for some of the stuff that I’m doing. But I’m just having too much fun so I’ll just keep it up 🙂
This really made my friday (only in swedish though).
The other day, me and Ricki was invited home to Eva’s place. It’s been awhile since we got together just to slack a whole day and being uselss. They had bought a new game called “master of movie” which was kinda like trivial pursuit but all movies all the way. When she had played it with her husband and friends it took them a few hours to complete. But I won it in less than 45 minutes. Then during the weekend I did another round of trivial pursuit with my family and by the time I called it because it was getting late I was a close 2nd. If only I could fill my head with usefull things like they are trying to teach me at this MS Exchange course than I’m attending right now…
So for no good reason I was sitting at work yesterday not really wanting to go home. I didn’t leave until 17.15, 45 minutes after I could and guess what I ran into? The huge homecoming crowd preparing for a party in Kungsan to honor our hockeyplayers. Eventually they showed up, Carola did her thing and it was a pleasant event.
Then today as I’m sitting questioning the meaning of existence a woman comes in with her digital camera. “I hear you’re good at these things?” “Yeah…?” “Good, ’cause I was at this party last night and I have some pictures I was hoping you could mail to me”. And sure enough I loaded them over and I can’t help but to take a sneak peak… does this guy look familiar? That’s the coach of the swedish hockey team in full swing after winning olympic gold medal and the world championship in the same season! “I was at this party”, yeah, understatement of the year… it was like THE party…
You know how I keep saying that I’m not 20 anymore? Well this weekend I kinda felt it! First we had a spring part on friday evening with classy dinner and then free bar open till 3 am. Got home around 4. Then up again at 12 and out to my parents to celebrate my fathers birthday. Then starting it up again at 6 when I met up with a few friends in a pub watching the hockey and having a few beers. Got home around 2 am. And then up at 10 am on sunday and felt GOOD!!!
I miss those days when that was an ordinary weekend for me…
And in less than a week we went from a chilly almost spring kind of weather to a full out summer and that resulted in a huge and sudden increase of pollen here and everytime I went outside I felt it. Badly. When I walked to the train this morning, when I walked out for lunch and when I went home… I’d almost forgotten how much I dislike spring… but then again, as I was sitting at Fridays in Kungsan enjoying my lunch I was reminded of how wonderful spring can be too…
I’m not a big fan of Göran Persson, our prime minister. He’s been the prime minister of sweden for 10 years now which is both admirable but also too long. Anyway, the other day he was a guest in one of the more unusual talk shows in sweden and as a part of their test how hip he was they showed him a clip from “Big Brother” and asked him to identify the show. He looked at it for a while and then said the most accurate description I’ve ever heard – “Is this a real TV show? People actually watch this?”. I thought that was hilarious. Got some bonus points in my book, but election is still a few months away.