You all remember Bush wonderful attitude towards the environment, right? That he called off the Kyoto agreement and doesn’t bother about “naturual reserve” signs when drilling for oil? And the lovely “it would cost us too much to care for the environment” attitude (not an exact quote, but the point was the same)? So, who in the US southern states believes that mother nature isn’t striking back with all typhoons and cyclones and stuff that have hit them over the past 3 weeks? It’s a record number of weather related disasters over there, and now we got Mt. Helen warming up for a party. And perfect timing too with the election coming up. I love the irony…
Today I had a huge accident! The kind that makes you think about ever driving again. Go-karts that is. We had an event today with tons of customers and we were driving go-karts. I wasn’t doing too well so I decided to step on it a little bit more. Came up to pass a guy but he wouldn’t let me pass, even with blue flags. So in the corner area I bump into him, bounce into the 1 foot high track markers and I come flying off the track and landing on the side way out of bounce. Fortunately the guys running the place were professional enough so they handled everything and didn’t allow me to drive anymore which costs us the second place. Except for my ankle acting up again, my knees are hurting like hell and my knuckles aren’t in the best shape I’m fine. Could have been alot worse. The worst part is that I let the team down. We qualified second and held that until I was up and I totally screwed it up and we finished second to last. Damn sorry for that guys!!!
So I did it again. In my totally idiotic and makes-no-sense quest to come home a little bit faster I cut a corner a little bit too close and hit the sidewalk. Immediate puncture right there. Fortunately I had a spare and I drove by a tire shop on my way home that fixed the busted on right away. So $90 and 2 hours later I got home. So much for trying to come home faster. Why do we do that?! But like the other times – no one got hurt 🙂
I’m really getting annoyed at that “Facts of Life” song that seems to be really popular on the radio. I dunno why… maybe because it’s pointless … or maybe it’s because it goes on about weird facts that my brain has a dedicated storage space for that exceeds the storage space one would like to have for usefull stuff… I prefered the sunscreen-song, that was hilarious and actually made sense!
Saw “Supersize Me” during the weekend. Scary stuff. Kinda don’t wanna eat McDonalds after that, especially not after seeing the guy trying to eat his first supersize meal. But overall I think it was a very good movie that should make alot of people realise that we have a problem. And it’s spelled “lazyness”… also saw “Bourne Supremacy” which was suprisingly good. I don’t expect much out of sequels, but this one was just as good as the first one, maybe even better. Ask me again after I’ve seen it three times 🙂
Today I woke up to a swedish moviemaker and critic on the radio that really got me angry. He was so pretencious it goes behind words. He was the kind that would go to a hungarian film festival just because it’s a hungarian film festival! I don’t mind hungarian films, but you understand what I mean? He explained how he likes to get out of the theater inspired or emotionally effected by the movie he saw, but added, “sure, sometimes I can go and watch an american movie”! I’d agree that alot of the movies that come out of Hollywood are crap, but out of all the movies some are good, few great and once in a while amazing movies will pop up. I hate the kind of movie critic that has the default opinion that an american movie = crap, and Hungarian movies = not crap because they aren’t american! I’m atleast so open minded I can watch Hungarian movie and might even like it but this guys whole attitude just annoyed me. He also got a bunch of questions, like if he did a movie with sponsors and they wanted the products to be displayed in the movie, and the guy just said “NO!”… I used to be blue-eyed naiv like that but eventually had to realise the monetary forces where too strong to ignore.
So, September 11th again huh? It’s impossible to think of this day as anything positive now after the brutal killing of Anna Lindh last year. Feel sorry for anyone that has this as their birthday, that’s gotta be tough.
When I went to bed last night I thought to myself “now that we’ve got so little to do at work, shouldn’t I donate some blood?”. I actually felt bad for not donating blood in a while. See, I’m the only one in my immediate family that is currently in such good health I actually can donate blood so it’s really more of an obligation I think. Not to mention it’s a good calorie burn! Then I realised they have this 3-months rule, and last time was … June 15th. So another week I guess. Woke up the very next morning and found a “it’s that time again!”-letter from the bloodbank. Terrible coincidence that I couldn’t ignore so first thing today I went up there. And even though my self esteem got a little boost, your ego takes a little beating when filling out the form you have to fill out every time. They have this little yes/no-box saying “in the past three months, have you had a new sexual partner?”. And no matter how much I wanna put down a yes, I really don’t think these are the kinda forms you wanna lie on…
Finally got a hold of “Fahrenheit 9/11”. Scary & funny stuff. Funny to see how Bush is trying oh so hard at press conferences and interviews but ending up saying stuff like “fool me once, shame on…[silent pause and a look of confusion only Bush can do]… you…”. Scary to see that the president of “the land of the free” can do stuff like that. It was all abit too much and sometimes very longshots trying to connect the Bush’s to saudi oil interests and all of that, but then it got really personal when interviewing soldiers in Iraq, and it got really heavy when interviewing the mother of a soldier who’ll never come home after fighting, what I’m sure history will call, the worst planned and executed war ever. Anyway, you should all go and see it and then wait in anticipating for the US of A to do the biggest mistake ever by re-electing this idiot. I really can’t see how it can be this close? I mean how many people do you hear being very very pro-Bush, saying that he’s been a great president, he hasn’t screwed up, the war was just and so on? I don’t hear any people saying that but that might be because I’m way over here in Sweden…
Ok, so the olympics are over and done with. And all I have to say is… was that it? I remember a couple of years ago when stockholm was in the running for the summer olympics 2004 and it was this huge deal and tons of money was spent on promoting it. And we didn’t get it. Athens did, obviously. And it cost them millions of millions to arrange it, and even more millions for tv companies to buy the rights to bradcast and millions and millions… for what? 2 weeks of sports? I don’t get whats so important about the olympics? It just seems so overhyped, but that’s just me…
Phew, that was one hectic weekend! Even though I wasn’t THAT involved with all the happenings during the SweCon it still felt like it! When we dropped off Tim Russ & Co. at the airport we just breathed a sigh of relief – it was finally over! And ofcourse I have some pictures thanks to my good buddy Ricki! Head over to My Pictures and scroll down to SweCon 2004″ I should be able to scan the signed pic with me and Tim Russ by tomorrow. Meanwhile, take a look at some new pictures I just added from my trip to Rome! And these pictures are taken by Ricki that was also “accidentally” in Rome at the time.
Now I actually have an excuse for not doing shit here on the site! For the past week I’ve done stuff perparing for the Swecon 2004 – the first swedish Star Trek convention with the first official Star Trek visit. Tim Russ, the guy who plays Tuvok on “Voyager” is in town for the convention which, to Star Trek in Sweden, is HUGE! And what do I do? Except for miscellanous stuff that I always do for Stockholm Trekkers I have been given the title “The Offical Driver of Swecon 2004”. So yeap, I picked the guy, his girlfriend and her parents up at the airport and I’m driving him to and from the hotel, which is actually fun and a good chance to just chat about non-Star Trek stuff. And today I had to do something that was actually something alot of people think I can pull off easily – bodyguard duty. When we were going from the hotel, 4 hours after he’d been on an national radio show promoting it, he had some fans down in the lobby at the hotel so I had to muscle up a bit. Never thought I’d be the bastard that pushes people away that just wants an autograph but the dude made it really clear he didn’t want to be bothered when he wasn’t at the convention so if any of those people are reading this – sorry!
Now I’m just totally forgetting about updating this place. Can’t blame it on anything now, I haven’t been that busy I’ve just forgotten to update… Oh well… I actually went to the movies a week back and saw “I, Robot”. I was expecting a “no brains, muscle driven action packed but wanna be deep”-movies. And it almost delivered. It was a little bit deeper than I thought it was gonna be, but the logic didn’t quite hold up. They had incorporated another rule by Asimov into the plot that was never explained, and the laws are built on the premise that a robot can’t change or overrule them when they chose to, no matter how intelligent they are. That’s why they are suppose to be “hardwired”, as oppose to software that can be changed.
Now I have a perfectly good reason for not posting anything in a while I’ve been totally busy with work and playing Doom 3. Seriously, that game is dangerous for your health. Don’t play it if you have a weak heart. And my computer is begging me for an upgrade, god knows how I’m suppose to afford that. But looking forward to another great weekend. I’m playing housesitter for four days, so it’s just me, huge house, a cat and the weather which I’m hoping is gonna be all sunshine!
I wish I could say I’ve been too busy to update this place. But the fact is I’m just lazy… no, actually, quite the opposite, I’ve been possessed by some workout deamon. When the scale 114 during my latest physical I thought it was time to do something about it. So I started working our and after two weeks I actually bought a scale to see if there was any result… 117 kilos. That’s what two weeks on sickleave with a busted ankle will do to you. Or did to me anyway. But right now I’m passing down to 114 again and I’m not planning to stop. Until I’m bored …
I’ve finally updated this place with information about what I’ve really been doing for the past 14 months. If you’ll go back through this years updates as well as last years you’ll see I’ve inserted comments about when I’ve been were and added some comments I haven’t been able to write earlier. And I’ve also updated My Trips with a complete listing of where I’ve been and all info you might wanna know. Enjoy! I know I did. The reason I haven’t been able to post this earlier was security concerns. And mostly for me. Who knows what certain security agencies would do to get their hands on a guy with admin access to that network. But that’s all over with now. My accound is disabled and all passwords have been changed so even if I could remember them it wouldn’t help anyone. So I’m thinking it’s safe to publish this now.
Today I saw ANOTHER docu-movie, this time on the story about MPRC, led by Tipper Gore, to ban “unethical” music lyrics and make the music industry responsible for what they are putting out there. And Frank Zappa, Dee Snider and John Denver came to its defence that they are just overreacting. The music bizz won but had to start putting “Parental Advisory” labels on the most extreme albums. Like all of Eminem’s. And along with that I also saw the “Bleeping Osbourne” weekend when MTV had so nicely replaced the the “fucks” and “bitches” with “beeps” and “mooos”. And they even went to the extreme length of censuring every on-screen cigarette. I’m all for pbulishers and TV stations taking their responsibility, but really, is it the music, lyrics and words we should be censuring? Isn’t it the image? What’s more damaging, Ozzy saying “fuck” or Britney dancing around wearing 3 threads? Twisted Sister’s song weren’t violent or anything extreme, but their image sure was…
Saw an interesting docu-movie today about the rise and rise of Adolf Hitler. Covered the years from when he was sent to jail right up the the start of WWII. I like to consider myself a history buff, especially WWII, but I didn’t really know that much about this part of Hitler’s life. First of all, one has to assume there are some made up stuff in a movie to increase the dramatic part of it, but this one was pretty seriously made. And there were some frightening stuff in there and afterwards it was pretty weird to think of the old saying “history has a tendancy to repeat itself”. To be brief about it ; the guy went from being in jail to being the leader of a superpower using loopholes in their constitution and used the arson against the german government building to push through some radic laws temporarily superceding human and civil rights which made him in charge of basically everything and then went to war. In short! Let’s think a little bit bigger. Do we have someone in charge of a superpower right now, with a criminal past, that used constitutional loopholes to gain power and then used an attack against them to push through some laws superceding human and civil rights and then went to war?… hehehe, frightening stuff… Big difference is ofcourse Adolf was a smart asshole. Bush is just an asshole. Another huge difference is that Bush has to face a re-election. Adolf was smart enough to get out of that.
Isn’t music amazing? I don’t know any other medium that can give you that kind of emotional responses or bring back memories like music can. I mean, who can hear a song like “Total Eclips of the Heart” without being effected in somehow, and who can help but to sing along to “Tubthumping”. Or help getting goose bumps when Moby’s “Everloving” kicks off? And there are songs that you just immediately connect to specific events. I heard Spin Doctors’ “Two Princes” the other day which brought me back to summer of -92 and me kicking back at the finishing line at the annual school run. I never ran since I had asthma so I was just sitting there enjoying the summer which pissed off everyone of my classmates. That why I love music.
Have I seen too many movies if the only way I can rate movies is by referring to other movies?
I really should stop watching this many movies, it can’t be healthy. Today it was “Shrek 2” and “13 Going on 30″… “Shrek 2” proved the statement made in “Scream 2” – sequals suck. Ok, it didn’t suck, but it wasn’t as fun or original as … the original. Biggest laugh was in the end when pussycat does the flashdance move, hilarious!! “13 Going on 30” was a little bit silly, felt like someone saw “Big” and then “Freaky Friday” during an “Alias”-marathon and brainstormed this one up in 5 minutes. Highlight was the retro scenes with the “Thriller”-dance. But the best rip-off of that dance was “Final Fantasy”…
Have I seen too many movies if the only way I can rate movies is by referring to other movies?