Have you seen Evanescence video to “Everybody’s Fool”? Powerful stuff. Not only a good singer, she can act too. But most of all – great music! Btw, what’s happened to that group, totally split up?
Busy little bee, but that’s almost over and I may actually be able to post some of the cool stuff here.
So we arrive here at the hotel Dorin in Holland and checking in, everything is going as usual. When all of a sudden, the clerk hands me a gold card and says “this will get you free drinks in the bar”.?? We’re all like “how many, like one a day”, but no, really – free drinks, all you can drink. As the bartender said – It’s your headache! A think like that would never, never EVER be allowed here in Sweden. For some reason, our politicians thinks that we can’t handle alcohol in a sensible manner and if we could buy it anywhere we’d all be drunks, so the government has monopoly on importing and the sale of alcohol. That’s just the way it is. So for a hotell or bar or anything to say “free drinks” would be really outrageous in Sweden. So how much did we take advantage of this? That’s between the three of us!
Have you heard about Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11”? Michael Moore did the documentary “Bowling for Columbine” a few years back, trying to get to the bottom of “why are americans so triggerhappy”. His conclusion then is that americans are being bombarded by fear from everywhere in a way you can’t see in any other country. And now he takes it a couple of steps further by examining the Bush family & administration, how it got to power, what it’s done during that time, 9/11 (ofcourse), the two wars and the nonstop lying ofcourse. And guess what happenes when it’s all done and ready to premiere in the states? Disney decides to shelve the movie, atleast until after the presidential election. And their excuse? Nothing noble as neutrality or anything like that. No, they are afraid of what’s going to happen with Disneyland in Florida if they realease this movie and upsets the Bush family, ’cause there’s a Bush in power in Florida as well! Talk about proving the point Moore is trying to make! Fortunately it’s getting so much attention that they probably will have to release it or sell it to someone who have some balls. It’s getting awesome reviews here in Europe anyway, it was shown during the Cannes film festival. And the international release is still a go. It’s just the american’s that don’t get to see it. Isn’t that kinda screwed up? A movie made by an american about the american leadership done for americans with americans, but they don’t get to see it? I like Michael Moore. He might not be the brightest most neutral person in the world, but he’s got humor, he doesn’t take alot of suff seriously and sure as hell isn’t pretentious if you look at his wardrobe!
I work at your everyday computer firm, and as you know the last couple of years have been pretty tough for the biz and still is. So in an attempt to make us more profitable the powers that be have decided to re-structure us and change the way we work to make it better, leaner and meaner. And I’m all for that! As long as people don’t lose their jobs I’m all for “better, leaner and meaner”. And today we travelled down southwest to Gothenberg for the kick-off of the new and better Pulsen Integration/System. And after that, when even the bosses couldn’t make the new systems work you kinda got a bad feeling about it. And after all changes with all the hype, buzz-words and the usual abstract talking when you look at how it actually effects the day to day operations… well, it might all work out. With the new ordering systems for us consultants it all kinda depends on everyone else doing their jobs before I can do mine. Nothing against “everyone”, but I kinda liked it the all way. And when I have to submit 5 unique reports on my activites for just one day as oppose to 1 in the old system you kinda understand all doctors out their crying that they spend way to little time actually being a doctor and too much time dealing with administrative duties. Is that the price we pay for “leaner”? Maybe, but we’ll see how it works over the next few months.
It’s finally over! Big Brother that is. I haven’t been watching it at all, not the swedish one anyway. I did see the italian version and even though I didn’t get shit it seemed much better than the “let’s get everyne drunk and laid”-approach they have in the swedish one. And I actually thought now that that’s over with we might read some real news in the papers. I was very wrong because their first pages was all covered with… Britney Spears! She was in Sweden for a whole day and they followed her footsteps – even interviwewed the waitress at the Sandy’s she stopped by and, get this – the actually got a copy of the credit card slip (with the credit card number blurred) signed by Britney herself. Wow, now that’s what I call news.
I love messing with other companies Helpdesk! I’ve got a couple of years of Helpdesk-service in my CV and I’m a pretty good techie if I may say so. So calling other Helpdesk can sometimes be fun because as a rule I know more about the problem than they do. So the only time I call them is when there’s a problem I can’t fix myself. Like this week when my internet connection started acting up and I had to call Bostream, my ISP, and talk to a Linda. Maybe I should’ve introduced me as the certified administrator that I am, but I thought that would either scare her or make her go “yeah, right, as if you know our stuff!”, but I didn’t. I started out pretending to be an average user but after a while she started giving me these really terrible advices (like disconnecting my firewall/router and allow my computer to go straight out onto the Net – unprotected!). Then I felt I had to kick it up a notch and tried telling her the problem was in their router located 3 km from me at this specific IP that was being bombarded with TCP packets. But she wouldn’t buy it and still told me to go home, try the things she told me and then call back. Being one that can’t say no to women I did exactly that and ofcourse it didn’t work. So I called back, talked to a Jacob and told him exactly what I told her – their router was being bombarded with TCP packets. He checked it up right away with a monitoring tool and “oh my god, look at that, i’ll send a techie to that router right away”. And they are still working on it though, but I thought the entire episode was pretty funny how she could sit there and insist on me trying things on my computer when I told her again and again that the problem was with their equipment. Although that’s not the worst helpdesk I’ve heard of, my friend called Telia Helpdesk and talked to this woman who claimed he was incompetent and didn’t know shit when he was saying he was running Windows 2003 because there was no such version as Windows 2003. In her troubleshooting papers that is.
My grandmother dying didn’t come as a shock to anyone I guess, she’s been ill for a long time and already last wednesday we were pretty sure she wasn’t gonna make it over the weekend. So my family started making arrangements to go over to Scotland for the funeral. But I couldn’t. For a lot of reasons like my economy couldn’t handle it and I’ve been travelling so much in the past 12 months I’m so tired of it and I also have a ton of stuff to do this week that I couldn’t reschedule (my wisdom tooth has got to go) and so on. But the main reason I didn’t want to go is that a hate funerals more than anything else in the world and this time, as oppose to the last funeral I went to, I was never close to my grandmother. I don’t even remember the last time I saw her. But that’s my fault and loss. So the only reason I had for going was to be there for my mother. But I’m trusting my two sisters will handle that, they are far more capable of that than I am. And as I’m writing this I realise how egotistical it sounds, but it’s how I feel right now.
I hate to be one of those mainstream people that’ll say “I’ve always liked them even before they became famous!” but I guess I gotta – Nightwish. Recently downloaded the musicvideo to “Nemo” – that’s some heavy shit right there man! They’re a finish band that’s kinda like “Evanescence” only twice as good singer (sorry Amy!) and much more to the heavy metal genre. As I said – heavy shit!
This weekend had all the ingredients to be absolutely awesome! Star Trek Voyager DVD box #1, two new Enterprise episodes, a Stockholm Trekkers day which usually means I get to see friends I haven’t seen in a while, the hockey championship finals, a Formula 1 race and beautiful weather. So what happened? I forgot how many times I’ve seen the first season of Voyager so I already knew all the episodes by heart, I haven’t had time to see the new Enterprise episodes, one of my best friends came down with the flu and couldn’t make it to the Stockholm Trekkers day, I got a speeding ticket, we “lost” the hockey final to Canada (again!), the F1 race was pretty boring since noone can come close to the Ferrari’s – and to put in the biggest blow – my grandmother passed away. Now I’m gonna go to bed, forget all about this weekend and try to deal with that last part.
But atleast the weather kicked ass!
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…