What happened today has been coming for a long time. Almost three years to be exact. I was caught speeding. Fortunately it wasn’t by much so I only got a ticket for $90, but it’s still pretty sour the way it happened. I had to go home to get my laptop and I was driving on Huddingevägen, 2 lanes and no traffic and limited to 70 kph. And I come along a blue and white that’s doing about 70. So I pass him. And they accelerate to 80 and they’re not catching me. And they wait for about 6-7 minutes until they catch up with me at the next traffic light, take me aside and say “we drove 80 and you drove away from us. We couldn’t clock you but you were doing over the limit for sure!”… “yeap, I was, so?”… seriously, why argue? I’ve never hesistated passing cops and they’ve never stopped me before. But these two guys just had to give me a ticket. So my perfect clean sheet, the kind that can only be faked that you hear about in movies, is now tainted by a speeding ticket.
Wanna see an awesome picture? Check this one. You don’t see what’s so special? Take a close look at the sunglasses in the original. I emphasize original, cause it hasn’t been altered in any way what so ever yet. So, guess where I was at the time?!
One little thing that keeps on surprising me is the “red vs blue” contests. It doesn’t matter if it’s in politics, sports or computers, “red vs blue” is everywhere. In politics it’s socialism vs capitalism. That’s is mirrored in computer tech with Novell vs Microsoft, Microsoft being legendary capitalists. It’s also commonly used in the graphics war between Ati and Nvidia – Nvidia being the capitalists (although technically, Nvidia is “green”). And in Formula 1 we have Bridgestone vs Michelin. Although Bridgestone seems to be more of capitalistic than Michelin. These are the things that occupies my mind…
Strikes are apparently frequent things here in Italy. Last week the national airline “Alitalia” was on strike and today it’s the taxi’s. And that’s not big of a deal, but the “Alitalia” thing has us worried since we’re suppose to fly home with them on thursday! And by all warning signs I’m getting they seem to be in a bit of a trouble. So today I had to book 3 tickets on an alternate airline to make sure we’ll all get home. Isn’t it nice how I finally have the credit to just book 3 flight tickets just like that? 🙂
“It’s another day, for you and me in paradise!”. One more of those “this is life” moment. After spending all day walking around in beautiful sunny Rome and eating a home cooked italian meal and just kicking back on the porch with a whiskey in my hand and one of my best friends on the other side of the table! Oh, didn’t I mention that? When it was decided I was gonna do the Rome-installation, my half-italian friend Ricki decided that would be an excellent time for them to go down there and visit his family. So he and his wife Mona came down here on thursday and I’ve been spending all sunday with them getting a tour of the city… this is life…
I’ve done so many trips and installations that I know all the routines and stuff that this time I’ve done everything I possible can to do everything as quickly as I possibly can and that has really paid off! I’m sitting out on the porch at the embassy just bathing in the sun without a care in the world. In Rome. Can’t believe it, I’m finally here! Or I can actually not believe it took me this long to get here!
We just got here to Rome and usually on the first day at a new place we just take it easy and settle in and go for a bite to eat an some close restaurant and take it easy. But not this time, we went down to the Colosseum right away and walked around in town for hours. Man it’s an old but very beautiful city. Wish it was warmer though, but I’ve been promised better weather by the lady on the TV…
I got a bitter-sweet problem that I don’t know how to deal with. Long story though, so here goes!
About 5 years ago one of the weekly highlights was to tune into a radio show called “Städdagen” on Radio Stockholm. It was a hilarious program hosted by a guy and his assistant who did all the dirty work. And they started an internet chat through their website as they were broadcasting. And I joined in ofcourse. And the more I chatted with his assistant the more I liked her. Then one day they started the show by saying how miserable she was feeling that day. So I made a call to fed-ex over a flower to brighten her day. Which it did. And that became a tradition that lasted a few months. Wonder if she thought that was sweet or if the stalker-alarm went off? Anyway, then I finally met them In Real Life and I liked her even more. True to my tradition she was a little spitfire, but when I saw that she had a CARTMAN on her desk I just had to ask her out. But nope, as usual, all good ones are taken. Then her career moved her over the pond to Finland so I lost contact with her. And had it stopped there it would only have been a “bitter” problem. The sweetness of the story comes from the fact that ever so often she popps up either on TV or on the radio! Like yesterday when I finally got to bed at 1 am and turned on the radio as I always do, and there she was. And everytime that happens I remember that year and her with a smile on my face. Although I’m totally over that little crush, I’ve even had girlfriends since then. But it still makes me feel good. Is this even a problem? Maybe not… well, it’s 4 am so I’m not surprised if I don’t make any sense at all.
They did it again. Both Expressen and Aftonbladet (two of the biggest newspapers in sweden) were, once again, running stories on their first page about… “The Farm”… a bullshit docusoap tv show here in sweden that, as far as I know, noone watches. Is there really nothing more important than that? No big exposĂ© about politicians or power abuse somewhere? No good story about people doing heroic things? They are in so sad a state that I’m worried for them and us.
I really dislike being amateur psychoanalyzed! It’s totally annoying, and it puts you in a “only an addicted person would deny he/she is addicted” position in which the more you deny it the more the amateur psychologist thinks she/he is correct. It’s annoying as hell.
This is just a test to see when my new webserver is online. I’ve been using Simplenet since I first started this joint, but I’m kinda tired by their lack of evolution so I’m moving the site to a new location. If you can read this, it means the new server is up and running. Hurray for me.
I thought I was pretty hip, up to date and hi tech. But I had no idea what “toothing” was until I read this CNN story. I shouldn’t be surprised at the different ways people use technology, some totally against the original intent. It kinda reminds me about the prostitutions story I’ve read about in “The Sims Online”. People are weird. But so am I so I shouldn’t be complaining.
Politics is getting boring now. Repetetive stuff like the Israel vs Palestine just isn’t interesting to follow anymore. And Bush still never admits to making a single mistake but keeps on making new ones. And in brittain there’s the talk about referendum about the EU constitution, same talk as in sweden. Why can’t something new and interesting happen? It’s getting boring. Is the old saying “no news is good news” really that true? Why can’t there be some reports¨ or interviews that are just fun? Whenever I turn on CNN nowadays, all I get is Bush this, attacks in Iraq that and so on…
One of my nicer qualities is that I’m pretty nice to people working at whatever store/restaurant or whatever I’m at. I go out of my way not to be one of those troublesome customers. If a waitress brings me the wrong food, that’s ok, no biggy – it’s just food. If the customer service is so overloaded they can barely think straight, that’s ok, I’ll call back later. I’m a very Mr Nice. But now I have to ask – just how damn stupid do you have to be to work at a customer service joint? Seriously, is it like “people who can’t get any real jobs” that they place there or what? I’ve always wondered that because I’m surprised at just how stupid they are sometimes. Like the most hilarious “is guatemala a real country?”-girlS (plural!) I got when calling the three biggest mobile phone operators in sweden to check for coverage in Guatemala. But now Turkish Airlines really hit the jackpot of stupidity – when I was recently in Turkey they lost my luggage. And I’m all like “ok, that happens, no biggy I’ll just have to wear these clothes an extra day”. And no clothes day after that, no problem, I’ll just go out and buy the necessities and send them the bill. And now, four weeks later, I got a letter from Turkish Airlines telling me that… well, I wish I knew BECAUSE IT’S ALL IN TURKISH!. Seriously, I made it clear that I was swedish, I was there temporarily and it should be handled by their swedish office, but oh no. I just hope someone at their swedish office can understand it. It’s not a lot of money we’re talking about, like $60, but now it’s just the principal of “how stupid can you get!?”.
I saw “The Butterfly Effect” last night. And loved it! I wasn’t expecting much, and I’m no fan of Ashton Kutcher, but I was happily surprised. The butterfly effect is basically the chaos theory of one butterfly in africa spreading it’s wings and starts a chain of events that could create a typhoon in asia. And this movie is about a guy going back to his childhood to create a perfect future for himself but everytime it has some side-effect that he didn’t see coming. And I like stories like that. The “change one little detail”-thinking that kinda proves just how little in life we are actually in control of. Real life example ; When I was in Buenos Aires with a friend we were bored one saturday evening and we just went out to a random bar and after some drinks he, being the opposite of me, went up to some girls just to ask them what else there is to do in town. And now one of those girls is moving up here to Sweden to live happily ever after with him. How many random events lead to them meeting and getting something going? Just change one thing, the taxi driver could have taken a right and we would have ended up somewhere else and they’d never meet. Unless it was really meant to be ofcourse. Think about that for an hour or two, what major event in your life would never have happened with one tiny itsy bitsy teeny detail was changed? Bet you can come up with a few, withouth really giving it much thought I came up with two.
One more weekend over and done with and one more Formula 1 victory for the guys in red. That makes me happy. Driving home from work on a cool, calm saturday afternoon with the sun shining in my face and the top window back, wind in my hair, stereo pumping, that makes me happy. And I also saw a couple of movies. I did another attempt at watching and appreciating “Lost in Translation”, I’ve gotten some heat for saying “what was the point”. So when I finally got a good “this is the point” description, I watched it again. “What was the point?”. I mean, yeah, they are both completely unhappy with their lives. They are both surrounded by people who don’t get them. They find each other and hit it off in a totally platonic way. And yeah, it’s beautifully filmed. And yeah, it’s got some humor. And guess what? It sounds like my life. Seriously!
Got Matrix 3 on DVD and although most people were disappointed with the second and third one, I just appreciate them for what they are. Action flics with good effects and wallbouncing sound. Not the revolutionary movie that number one was, you can’t really live up to that again. And they have Monica Bellucci in them. And I also saw “The Cooler”. William Macy and Maria Bello, both favorites for an old ER fan, doing great jobs of a pretty good script, but a bit violent at times. But totally worth the 2 hours it took to see.
Here’s the story ; We were on another one of these cruises right. There are, as I see it, four reasons to be on a cruise like this. The drinking, the gambling, the tax free and the hooking up. Everyone in their upper teens-twenties are there to hook up, if only for one night. It’s an hilarious meat-market to watch. So anyway, I’m standing at the bar in the disco (yeah, yeah!) waiting for my turn to order when my friend starts talking to this woman (who’s not his wife!), and I can’t hear what they’re talking about. And then she turns over to me and starts talking how he’s trying to sell me off “’cause I need a girl”. Can’t really argue with him there. And after that opener, we start talking about… stuff, normal prelude talk. Then I order my drinks and leave her right there. Yeah, I KNOW! Now she seemed like a really nice person, and she was funny and most of all, she took the initiative. I’d usually go for that. So why didn’t I? I’ve been beating myself in the head trying to figure it out, and the only thing I can think of is that I didn’t find her physically attractive. Personality wise – yes. But not physically. Ain’t that something? I didn’t think I’d react that way in that given situation, but I guess I proved it. And I’m not really one to talk about not being physically attractive because I’ve looked myself in the mirror, I’ve seen the triple digits on the scale. So how can I justify this? I wasn’t that drunk ’cause I hadn’t started with the strong stuff yet. My spontaneous thought was “why should I settle for something less than a hottie”. Which brings me full circle to “I’m a superficial asshole”. I just hope I didn’t offend her, I don’t really remember how I ended the conversation, I do remember not buying her a drink after just having discussed the financially difficult life of a college student. Usually they don’t even have to hint at that for me to pick up the tab. I guess my judgement may have been impaired by the consumption of alcholic beverages after all. Or perhaps I just suck at this “one night stand” thing?
Now I’m a bit closer to defining a good april fools joke. I did two yesterday. One that was slightly believable but I didn’t put that much energy into it and it worked pretty fine. But on NP.com we went all the way with a faked CNN page about Natalie Portman getting engaged to her boyfriend. And we really did go all the way but threw some humor into it (just look at the “Related story”). And this one was believable right up to the point when you just stop to think about it. And that’s when you’d noticed those small things like the address to the site being “cnn.dnsalias.org” and everything being a link to the same page. And that one worked – flawlessly! So now I know. And now I’m off on another Finland-cruise.
I don’t know if movies are getting weirder or if I’m getting shallower (if that’s even a word?!), but lately I’ve hard trouble … “getting” some movies that have gotten great reviews for being creative, different, deep, artistic and whatnot. Like “Lost in Translation”, I so didn’t get that movie. And as a globetrotter the only parts I enjoyed were those usual problems when you’re in a new country for a week or two. But most recently it was “Adaptation” which has gotten great reviews everywhere. I saw it and I so didn’t get it. I mean, I get that it’s a screenwriter who wrote a movie about himself trying to write a screenplay that included himself and a story about orchids. And Nicholas Cage was damn good in it, no complaints about Mery Streep either, and I like Chris Cooper too. But it was just soooo boring. You kinda wondered where it’d end up, and it sure as hell didn’t end up anyway I could imagine it. And then I see “Rundown” (no-brains testosterone movie featuring The Rock), and I loved it! Is there something wrong with me for preferring a no-brainer action flic like that before a movie that’s so deep I don’t get it, if there was something to get?
Now I’m almost fit for fight again. Still got a little problem lung-capacity wise so I haven’t done much excercising in the past few days, don’t wanna spoil it now that I actually feel pretty good. And you really do appreciate feeling well after being sick or “not completely healthy” for as long as I have. Fortunately, we’ve got a corporate medical plan kicking in soon so I’ll go in for a complete check up. And how will that end I wonder? “You’re cholesterol is through the roof, what’s your diet like!?” … “uh, diet?… a liter coca cola per day, atleast one big bag of chrisps per week, a couple of burgers, some pizzas, the usual…”. And I kinda wish I was kidding.