Just a quick not before I’m out of here (as I’m watching the fireworks in Sydney) – Happy new year! And all things considering, it can’t get much worse than 2002 can it?
Ok, I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting this place over the holidays. I’ve been away for a couple of days during Christmas, and then I’ve just been totally relaxing while not doing much at all. Actually I’ve been watching alot of movies over the past week. Like the hilarious “Fat Greek Wedding” and today I finally saw the latest Bond flic (which I really enjoyed) but I’ll wait until Wednesday to see the new Lord of The Rings quite simply because I saw the first one on the 1st of January.
And tomorrow I’ll be going to my sis and her hubby for a new years party so if I don’t get to update tomorrow here’s wishing you a happy new year!!!
Puh, that was a busy week! Except all the work at work, and being on-call and actually called in, I’ve been totally busy writing a new revolutionary section on NataliePortman.com.. revolutionary for us anyway 🙂
Which reminds me of that funny joke most of you didn’t get (“select * from users where clue>0”), this is the end result of what I’ve been doing:
“SELECT ARTICLE_ID, DATE_FORMAT(DATE, ‘%M %D, %Y’) as FDATUM, PUBLICATION, COUNTRY, LANGUAGE, AUTHOR, TITLE, ROUND(RATING_POINTS/RATING_VOTES, 1) as RATING, RATING_VOTES, SYNOPSIS FROM articles WHERE $wherelan $wheremedia $wheretype $orderby1 $orderby2 LIMIT $limitvalue, $limit”
Yeah, it may look easy but it took a week!
Anyway, onto something much nicer – last minute Christmas-shopping! I realised on Thursday that I still haven’t bought the presents for the grown-up part of our family so I had to find some time to do that. And since I’m working on Monday I planned it for Saturday. I expected half of stockholm to do the same, but thanks to the fact that I got in early I missed most of the crowds. And there was this one things that I thought was pretty funny.. an elderly man and his wife going around the hippest CD store with the list of things for their teenage grand-daughter and trying to pronounce “INXS” to the clerk.. something funny yet sweet about that whole scenario 🙂
Do you know what my biggest problem in school was? It wasn’t being in the lower social rank, it wasn’t the teachers, it wasn’t the fellow students, it wasn’t what we were reading – it was the fact I couldn’t concentrate on reading more than a couple of pages at a time! I don’t know why this is, but whenever I pick up a book I can only read 6 or 7 pages before I either have to do something else or my eyelids will close! It doesn’t matter what it is I’m reading, if it’s boring or exciting, same result! This was a huge problem back then, but for some reason I have no problem reading pages and pages of stuff on a computer screen. This has led to my not reading that many books. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve read more than maybe 5 books – willingly! And some pretentious people have looked down on me because of this little fact that I don’t read books.
So why am I boring you with this information? Because I want you to understand the story behind the recent mystery – why do I rock in Scrabble – IN ENGLISH?!! Seriously – when playing against my Scottish born mother, my sister who has lived over there for years and have a Scottish husband, my father who has travelled the world for years and also married an english speaking person, when faced with that opposition, how can I win?! I don’t get it, but I did it again – TWICE! And in that last round, when my sister and ‘brother’ realised I was leading they even did a team-move to beat me (he did a 42 point word that she challenged to he would get double points!), and failed (because “infirmed” wasn’t in the dictionary!)! There must be something wrong because I’m not that good in these kind of social games! With the exception of Trivial Pursuit, I suck at them! So with my reading problem and the handicap of never living in an english speaking country, how can I win in this game!? I don’t get it…
After yesterday’s update you may be thinking “how can you be a single, sexually active guy in the most babified city in the world, and not get atleast one HIV test!? If not for your sake than atleast for your partner’s!”. And you’d be right too, and I’m usually the first person to tell people how irresponsible it is not to use a condom. But that’s just it – I do! And always have. I’ve even taken a raincheck once due to lack of one. With the one exception of the first time (I was not totally sober, it wasn’t planned, she was calling the shots and I didn’t have one nearby). But that’s all it takes right, just one time? And that’s when I started getting worried until I all of a sudden realised – I did get a blood analysis a couple of months after that trip to Kenya. So I’m not worried anymore. What’s my point? – always use a condom and always have one nearby! And if you have really good friends/family, they’ll give you one on your 25th birthday… ok, you had to be there to appreciate the joke…
In this dark time of my life (the sun sets between 3 and 4 now!) when I’m totally broke I still found a way to contribute to charity – I’ve finally become a blood donor! Well, technically I haven’t actually donated any blood yet, they just took samples to make sure I’m not dying of something that could affect my blood. And so it hit me – I haven’t had a medical checkup for years, must be about 15 years ago or something! So I’m kinda nervous if they’re gonna find something.
So give it up for my boss at work who dragged me to the blood donor place! But I still say you should be able to donate blood at Huddinge Hospital…
I’m getting really scared of the God of Joy right now! The last thing I need right now is more expenses! And that’s the only thing I seem to be getting! Most recently my desk that broke down in three pieces as I was changing around things in my living room. What I really can’t understand is everyone who says “more money, more problems”!? How is that possible!? I don’t see how getting more money can give you more problems! Perhaps different problems like “geez, where am I gonna spend all my money today” or “do you mean I actually have to drive myself today”! So let’s end this little update with something I’m pretty good at – a quote:
I believe the struggle for financial freedom is unfair
I believe the only ones who disagree are millionaires.
– Savage Garden, “Affirmation”
Remember that God of Joy I was so upset with last week? Well, I must have done something worse than just owe him/her money, must have slept with his/her wife/husband or something really bad to piss him/her off (notice how very PC I am!). Just as I was getting my economy back together after the past two months ups’n’downs, including repairing my car for $270, and I was just starting to plan my X-mas budget when B A M! down comes a bill from Shell wanting $950 from me for parking fees – from June and July! Hello, it’s December now!!! I am really, really sorry God of Joy, for whatever it is I may have done to piss you off, please! Let me enjoy X-mas atleast!!!!
Every once in a great while my brain does something right and I come up with a funny idea that even I can be proud over. And today was one of those occasions – ImOnlyKidding.com. Believe it or not, but that domain wasn’t take. But it is now, so in a couple of days typing “imonlykidding” will land you on this site. It’ll take a couple of days for the DNS entry to replicate to the DNS roots due to the distributed architecture of the IP protocol. Don’t you just love computer lingo!? 🙂
There must be a God somewhere, let’s call it the “God of Joy”. I must owe that f*cker money in a previous life or something! After last weekend when everything was going against me and I just said “to hell with it” I started the project of upgrading my computer at home. And yesterday when everything (except the new harddrive) was in place I enjoyed the most incredible gaming computer I’ve ever had! For the first time I was able to run a really graphics heavy game totally maxed out without any problems. Me = happy! This mornig, I got up and was still happy. Got to work, still happy. And then the “God of Joy” said “that’s it!” and decided to ruin everything, and the mechanic called me and said “repairs on your car will cost about $250″… me = not happy! Why, why oh dear God of Joy won’t you let me be happy for one continuos day! Please!!!
Or another example – took the train this morning (since my car is in the shop) and saw a very, very pretty woman on the train (who I really hope isn’t reading this). Usually I would just think to myself “nice :)” and that’d be it. But oh no, I had to notice that she had something that appeared to be an Adam’s apple, and all of a sudden I remember this “women don’t have Adam’s apples”-comment from Friends. But this one did, noway she was now or have ever been a guy, way too pretty for that. But it still ruined the entire trip for me.
I’ve got a terrible confession to make. I actually like Jen Lopez’ “Jenny from the Block” 🙁 It’s not the lyrics (I couldn’t care less about her trying to reconnect to where she grew up, and I’m surprised anyone else does!), and it’s sure as hell isn’t the video ( 1) She’s in it 2) Affleck is in it 3) I don’t pitty her one bit for having paparazzi’s everywhere she goes), but there’s just something there in the song that I like, and I don’t like liking a Jen Lopez song!!! Somebody please say there’s a hidden message in there that effects me on a subconscious level, that might explain it…
After a hellish week at work (including working until 10 pm on wednesday fixing a crashed server) I was pretty happy when the clock hit 5 on friday to finally kick back, relax and enjoy a weekend without concerning myself about anything. But as I drove home my car started making funny noises, so I guess I’ll have to take it to the shop for a $200 checkup plus fixing whatever is broken. And then it got even worse as my harddrive on my workstation quit on me – 50 gigs of data I’m never getting back, and I have to buy a new asap, that’s another $150 right there.
So what does a normal, sane person do when stuff go this bad and it feels like the entire world is against hime? I have no idea, but I know what I do – I turn it off, tune it out and just watch a couple of movies. Which is what I spent saturday doing. One of those movies was “Shawshank Redemption”. I don’t think I can emphasize enough how incredible that movie is! It’s just awesome! And especially when I was feeling like things were really not going my way, then seeing this movie which is basically about just how much a human being can handle and how incredible life and hope is, that felt like exactly the right medicine at the time!
Thank you Mr. Darabont!
I accidentally saw an interview with the t.A.T.u chicks on MTV and got they came up with a pretty good quote – “we’re not lesbians, we’re just in love with each other”. I liked that quote. Actually I like people who refuse to be labelled, and that quote pretty much summons that up!
Let’s combine two subjects I’ve already covered – prejudice and peoples likes/dislikes. Is it ok to like some artist or something because that person is say… TOTALLY HOT? Not without being very shallow! Well what if that person is very talented, still ok? But the real question is – can other people accept that you may like that person because of his/hers talent, not only because of ‘that other thing’?
Confused?
Let’s take the example that prompted this question – t.A.T.u! When I was listening (yes, I listen to the TV which means the TV is on but I’m sitting in front of my computer!) to the pre-show to the MTV EMA’s last thursday I heard this song that I like, “All The Things She Said“. Pretty good song, very catchy. But I had no idea who did the song. So I turned around to see who it was. Turns out the “group” is called t.A.T.u. They are two teen chicks from Russia (one of which is totally hot). Then they start making out on the stage! Nothing much, hugs & kisses but still surprising. Although I should be if I’d pay attention to lyrics like “They say it’s my fault but I want her so much”… Then my friend Dazza says that’s one of the things they are famous for. So the question I asked myself after that experience is – will people judge me as “superficial, typical guy who likes seeing two chicks go at it” simply because I like their music?
It’s the same with Jeri Ryan (7 of 9 in Star Trek Voyager). I’ve always liked her, and not only because she’s like the apex of sexiness, but because she’s actually a good actress. But everytime I mention that I like her in any forum what so ever, people judge me because I can’t possibly like her for her acting skills, can I?
What doesn’t make this any better is the fact that I do it! A friend of mine likes Pamela Andersson, and I immediately threw that out the window as “shallow guy who likes big breast”. Although in that specific case I might have been right, but it doesn’t make me any better than anyone else 🙁
Everyone who knows me will tell you that I’m pretty childish and immature, and I’m fine with that. But yesterday I felt old and obsolete! I was talking to Dazza (of NP.com) on ICQ and he was telling me about the EMA’s going down on MTV. I had no idea that was on, completely out of the loop. But I switched over to enjoy the show. And as I was talking with my friend on ICQ I found myself dissing almost everyone and all the modern pop music! Totally dissing it! Either that’s because I’m too old, or the music has gotten worse! The only thing thing that saved it was Röyksopp’s opening act and Moby’s closing act, everything inbetween there was more or less dissed by me! And there was only one category in which I DIDN’T diss all the nominees – “best new act”, so maybe there is hope for me or the music industry yet!
And Moby finally got recognition for his website! It’s been way overdue!
But one thing I’m pretty sure of – MTV has really lacked off over the years! They used to be cutting edge, no holds barred unrestrained music and entertainment! Today Pink can’t say “bitch” in her lyrics, half of eminem’s song has some mute built into them and that naked chick yesterday (I’m pretty sure that was pre-arranged!) will have some parts blurred out in the re-runs!
Just how geeky am I? One example – I laughed my ass of today at the following joke:
> SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE CLUE >0
> 0 rows selected
Don’t worry, if you didn’t get it, you’re normal.
One thing about LAN parties everyone should know is what a beating your body takes! The food is terrible – pizza, cola, chips and snacks. And you suffer from sleep deprivation. Then your mind is focused 95% of the time when your playing some LAN game. And then ofcourse all the carrying around with your computer equipment. But believe you me – it was so great to get home and slip down in my bed and sleep for a good 10 hours, then it was up and go to work again 🙁
But I had a helluva time!
This weekend I’m gonna do something I haven’t done in a long time – attend a LAN party. Here’s a short description – a bunch of gamers pack their computers and head off to one building, hook everything up and just play games against/with each other for a few days, and there’s usually a tournament. Now I know what you’re thinking – “oh my good how anti-social, pathetic and geeky”. You’re wrong! It’s not anti-social – there’s plenty of human interaction, and you can actually go around blowing up your best friend or anyone else you want to and laugh it off. You get to meet the people you’ve been playing against/with, swap war-stories. Pathetic? What’s pathetic about a bunch of people getting together at one place to train and tune their skills? It’s the same as a friendly game of soccer! Geeky? Just because it’s with computers, isn’t it? Do you know how much a computer, with monitor, weighs!? Carrying all that around builds muscles, and we’re not geeky anymore!… ok, that was a longshot, but I really don’t like how people think “dude, that’s pathetic” when I describe what I’m gonna spend my weekend doing. Or perhaps this is just more of my late teenage rebellion against my mother always saying “why don’t you go outside and play”? (I never said my parents were perfect!)
What a wacky weekend that was! Saturday was a national holiday here in sweden, so we only worked half a day on friday. And I’m not sure I can call that working because I didn’t do that very much there. Then I went “home” (to my parent’s place that is) for the annual halloween party that my sister arranges every year for the kids and guess what, didn’t do anything then either. I actually think friday was the laziest day all year for me. On saturday I actually worked, but to compensate for that I went to good old friend Markus’ to celebrate his 30th. Damn good party, but I had to leave early though, ’cause I have to study for another certification this afternoon. Throw in the arrival of Star Wars Episode II DVD and you’ve got a hectic weekend right there.
But one thing is certain – I have the best parents in the world! I’m pretty sure everyone (ok, most people) think they have the best, but I know I do. I could write pages and pages about how great my mother and my father, but I’m afraid I’d forget something and they’d make sure I never forget it, so I’m not gonna write a list, I’m just gonna say that I really do have the best parents in the world 🙂
Every time I get into a discussion about violence in movies, in computer games and bad things about the internet I use myself as an argument that most of that is bullshit, because if there was some truth to it I should be a mass murdering, bomb-making anarchistic pedophile. But I’m not, and the reason is that my parents did such a great job with me that I’m not screwed up in any of those ways, they made sure I knew the difference between violence in the movies and in real life and they made sure I got that little switch in my head that says “no, this is wrong”.
So mom, dad – thank you and I love you 🙂