stoff
As I was walking to work last friday I walked by a place with alot of posters and stuff on the wall and I noted a poster about some Katie Melua visiting Stockholm this weekend. She looked beautiful on the poster so I thought I’d download a song or two at work. Wow! Awesome stuff! I’ve never been much of a blues fan – as a matter of fact, until that night in Helsinki at Storyville I’d never even bothered listening to it. But this was just WOW! Just listen to Shy Boy, that was enough for me to go out and buy the album! Love it when that happens, things like this just comes along and leaves your mind blown away! And I’d also like to point out that had it not been for these things that the record industry is trying to stop I would never have bought her album, think about that!
Today Metro did something really nice! Metro is a free newspaper that doesn’t have to create stories by twisting facts, they make their money off advertisements. ANYWAY, they had picture with the Crazy Frog and text that said “SMS to this number and pay $4 for an annoying ringtune and support a millionaire”, and right next to it a picture of an orphan pakistani child with the text “or SMS to this number and donate the money”. I think that really hit home cause it was so in your face. And if I wasn’t donating money to Unicef, Amnesty, Greenpeace and the Red Cross as well as donating blood – I’d feel guilty.
And today I found out what people that don’t have a site like this do when travelling and want an online diary – Resedagboken.se. Didn’t know that place existed until a cyber-friend of mine went downunder to australia and started a diary there. I’m gonna go there someday too, I just suck at saving up for something like that.
Now I’m just pure lazy! I was reminded I even have this place today when I bumped into one of the managers of the projects that had me travelling the globe. And it made me feel all kinds of happy so I went through my logs and updates during that time and it’s so funny reading it now 2 years later 🙂 I think I should make some kind of special section on this site (or even design a new one) for all that stuff. I actually wish Blizzard would have some kind of melt down at their datacenters so I could get my ass out of the cyberworld and do stuff!
I don’t care what anybody says, when it’s the 27th september and I can go around stockholm in a t-shirt and still feel comfortably warm – that’s just wrong! Something’s really messed up with the weather. And the fact that Bush says the opposite makes it even more likely.
This morning I saw something on the train that made me smile. A woman, a beautiful one at that, was talking on her cellphone. Nothing special about that. Thing was she was deaf and was using the third generation cell phones with the camera feature and “talking” with sign language. Made me smile cause it’s the first time I’ve seen that. And people say technology doesn’t make people’s lifes better…
Another sad day for journalism. Aftonbladet, the tabloid that likes to think of itself as the biggest newspaper in sweden, had a front page today that was… totally irrelevant. Some guy in “Idol 2005” (our version “Popstar” or whatever) performed some song to his new girlfriend and started crying. Yeah, seriously, that’s the story on the front page today! Maybe if he had sung some love song to his boyfriend or something it might have been miniscule newsworthy, but not even that.
If I’d done the front page I probably would have had a some kinda memorial to Simon Wiesenthal. But that’s just me.
I think I may have spoken too soon. When I was thinking about it I think I owe september 11th 2001 for working here at the law firm! Because at the time I was working as a consultant hired out on a long term assignment to the biggest swedish airline (SAS). But after september 11th and another accident in italy they got rid of all their consultants to save money fast. So it was back to the office for me and just when that happens this law firm called wanting more people and I was the only one in idle mode. And who knows, if I’d been at SAS I might not be allowed to participate in the world tour of 2003 & 2004 🙂 So I guess I was affected after all.
I finished my september 11th by watching “The Flight that Fought Back”. Sounds like a bad horror movie. It was a documentary on Discovery about UA093, the plane that was crashed in the middle of nowhere (sorry all Pennsylvanians) on September 11th 2001. You remember reading about that plane and I have some distinct memory of hearing the passengers crashed it so it wouldn’t hurt anyone else but this is the first time I’ve ever seen what, to the best of anyones knowledge, happened. And it was pretty emotional. All the personal stories and everything, and the clips back to what happened in NY with all the news footage, very emotional stuff. And I don’t know why! I mean what happened that day was a tragedy all around, but this was the little light that made it into a “could have been worse”-scenario, but why would I get emotional about that? I wasn’t directly effected by it? I didn’t know anyone there or effected by it? Or anyone that knew someone even. And it’s a war between the US and muslims, so nothing I’m involved in. But still when I see footage of the second plane hitting I’m praying it’ll miss… I don’t get that emotional when I see footage and read horror stories from New Orleans in the past weeks, and that was on a humane scale far worse!
September 11th again. Almost missed it had it not been for WoW telling me the date. Double memorial day. 4 years ago now since they changed the NY skyline. And 2 years ago since some asshole took away Anna Lindh, one of the few politicians I could really vote for. I can’t remember exactly what I did last tuesday at 5, but I can tell you exactly what I did and how I felt 4 and 2 years ago. 4 years ago I was home sick from work and laid in my couch playing GT3 all day until turning on the TV for the 6 o’clock news and then not turning the news off for 8-9 hours. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was just so unreal, like someone would yell “cut!” any second you know. And 2 years ago I was busy installing computers in Gdansk but that day I didn’t get alot of work done. All I could do was refresh the swedish newssites all day and feeling like I really didn’t wanna be there, I wanted to be home because I pass the place it happened at almost everyday and I just wanted to do something. But couldn’t. So that’s the kind of day I’ve had. 🙁
Yesterday some idiots proved another odd point they made in “Crash” – criminals don’t watch the Discovery channel. If they did they’d probably do their homework alot better. Because yesterday some 3-4 guys decided to rob a Securitas van carrying money to their clients. They got into the van by blowing it up, really smart, huh? But that’s not the funny thing. Their escape plan wasn’t the best so they had to stop, or atleast delay, the police to give them a head start so they sat a few cars on fire on the E4 highway at the bridge at Vårby. Good plan. Except if they knew anything they’d know the cops come down on the highway at the NEXT exit (Slagsta) so that stunt had no effect at all except jam up traffic for a few hours. Geez, stupid criminals. I happen to know this cause I drive that road alot. But I guess we should be happy they’re stupid.
You know how sometimes a movie you’ve never heard of comes along and just blows you away? Well, sometimes that doesn’t really happen! I saw “Crash” posted on an internet site and checked it up on IMDB and it had gotten great reviews. And it was another one of those movies that follow alot of differnet people and plots that come together at some point, stuff I usually like. So I bought it on DVD instead of download it. But man was I disappointed!! It was very, very racist. As a matter of fact, it was about nothing else than racism and prejudice. And I guess I was brought up in a way too protected environment to get this kinda thing. The only one I could relate to was Sandra Bullocks character that posed the question “where is the line between protecting yourself and racism”. That after having their car stolen by 2 black guys. And acting wise the only one that excelled was Thandie Newton. If you wanna see a day of 10 more or less racist peoples lifes in LA, go see it. If not – don’t.
WoW is still dominating my free time. It’s gotten so bad I haven’t even seen the new “Battlestar Galactica” episodes that we’ve waited half a year for. But last friday we proved just how social that game can be. Our guild (Evil Inc.) was doing an instance in the game called Molten Core which is huge, difficult and time consuming. And it requires a group of no less than 40 players! So from around 7pm on friday night to just before 4 am on saturday morning 40 people were connected playing and talking with eachother (voice communication is a must in that place). I don’t think there’s any other game out there that can do that. In Battlefield we found it hard to get 10 players together at a given time. In Counterstrike you only needed 5. But 40 – for 8 hours… And yes, we’re all nuts!
This kinda stuff never gets old! Let me translate – an 18 year old girl says she got raped at a party. The lawyer to the guy who’s accused is requesting that she wear the same jeans and tries to strip in front of everyone at the court to prove that they were too tight for any rapist to forcibly remove. If it wasn’t such a serious matter I’d laugh… And no, I’m not taking sides to if he did or not, I’m just scared at the fact that the legal system is so good at protecting the accused but doesn’t really care about the victims…
Speaking of serious – alot of you are probably wondering what happened to my headache? I wish I could say. The truth is that it’s almost gone. But I still feel … weird up there. But I’m still not sure if it’s mental or something actually wrong with me. Right now I’m in a holding pattern to find out if I’m gonna get a steady job or go unemployed from october 25th, because that is the only mental thing I can think of that can cause this. If it doesn’t get better after that I’m gonna have to get some kind of checkup of my head but right now I’m just waiting. And playing too much WoW…
WoW! That’s the reason my freetime is totally wiped out of existence, why my personal life has been reduced to a bunch of ones and zeroes in a database in Germany! I don’t know how Blizzard creates this addictive feeling in their games but yesterday I stepped over the line between “avid player” to “junkie”! Our old SoulCrushers guild has decided to merge with a guild that has high standards and expects alot of us. The entrance exam is to get the so called “Onyxia key”, and to get it you have to complete 14 different quests and most of them you have to be in a team of 5 to do and 3 of them in a team of 15 players. So when you get a chance to go with a large group of people you value it. And in the very last quest you have to collect something from the last boss and it takes some 3 hours to get to him. We did it all 3 times and I never got it and that third time I got so pissed, angry, depressed, bitter and a general asshole. Until I realised it’s only a game, it’s only a few numbers in a cyberexistence, in the final tally it’s not worth crap. Fortunately I have the ability to distance myself from… well, myself to think about stuff like that. But I’m not the kind that gives up and on my fourth attempt, at 1 am last night, I got it. But I didn’t get that many hours of sleep because I had to get up at 6 to go to work.
That does it! Now I’m convinced. I’m a believer. Dentists ARE sadists! I’ve had many dentists in my years. More than most people go through in a lifetime. And they’ve all been horrible to me and my teeth. Unconsiderate to how it feels lying there helpless as they are drilling away! About a month ago I had everything in my mouth fixed up and I had my wisdom tooth pulled. The nurse that time was very considerate and helped a little bit, but the doc wasn’t. He pulled it straight out. After that I got a terrible toothache in a tooth right next to it. I thought it’d go away, but nope. So last week I called in to get an appointment. “My” dentists wasn’t there but I got to see another dentist instead but he was booked for a week. And today I got there. I told him “I’m experienceing pain in the tooth in front of the wisdom tooth the other guy pulled and it feels like a cavity”. So what does this guy do? First he knocks (yeah, he did actually knock!) around to see if all the teeth are in place, then he pulls up a water sprayer thingamajig and sprays the entire area with ice cold water! Didn’t the f*cker here me or what? I was so close to punching him! I mean if I go into a doctors office and say I’ve had a headache for 6 months they say “it’ll pass” (I wish that was a hypothetical!), they won’t knock you in the head will they? But go to a dentist and say you think you have a cavity and he’ll spray cold water on it! God damn that hurt, right to the bone and it’s still freezing 4 hours later! And what was his conclussion? “Well, you do have a cavity so I’ll set an appointment with your dentist to fix it, but she won’t get back from holiday for a month!”. And then he charged me $30 for saying something I already knew so I must’ve been paying for the pain. SUCKER! But apparently walking around with a cavity right down to the nerve for a month isn’t a problem for some people.
And now the politicians in the US wanna go have a comittee and do a study on the real world effects of kids gaming too much thanks to all the recent “Grand Theft Auto” stuff. Even a grandmother who bought the 17+ game for her 14 year old grandson is suing them for false advertisement amongst other things! It really makes me sad to hear all this. If it’s not rock’n’roll, TV, movies, internet it’s games. It can’t possibly be the parents, or rather parent’s perception of things like this. I could go on and on about it, but I think this open letter to Hillary Clinton (who’s spearheading this) says it all much better than I could!
And when the top music execs in LA got to make their top 10 list, this is what you get. Out of all those, Alicia Keys is the only one I like. Beyonce was ok but getting a bit dull by now. And I’m sorry, I just can’t like someone that changes his name to “Andre 3000”, it’s just not cool… So I guess this leaves me stuck on VH1 looking at “top 100 of the 80’s”-lists. They did a “Top 100 Women” list and for once I was able to nail the top 10. I got the order a bit wrong (never would’ve thought they’d put Aretha Franklin as high as #2!) but Madonna being # 1 was abit too easy. Makes more sense than putting Robbie as # 1 on their “100 men” list! That still feels so wrong.
American double-standards are in full swing again! If you haven’t been following the story of Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas, here’s a recap : The game is a very violent game in which you kill people with guns or bats or whatever, steal cars and you’re a general bad guy. It’s sold like butter so far even though it had a “Mature (17+)” rating. Now a couple of programmers not related to the manufacturers at all released a little addon to the game that unlocks a part of the game that was previously hidden. It was in there but locked by the creators of the game. It was a little erotic mini game that takes place when the original game just shows the exterior of the house with moaning in the background. And when that got a bit of media attention all hell broke lose in america and thanks to political preassure they have to re-rate the game to Adults Only, and the creators of the game will complete take this part away to try to lower the rating.
Now here’s my thought : A game which goal is to kill people and do all kinds of illegal stuff is rated “mature”, but as soon as there’s a little change (by a third party) that involves sex, that’s when they start to protest and label it “adults only”? I would’ve thought it was the other way around! Can’t those americans get over their conservative “we don’t talk about sex even though everyone is doing it”-attitude? “Mature” is 17+, and isn’t that the perfect time to play these erotic mini-games rather than go around cyber-town waving double 9mm Barettas? I’m starting to think that the violent incidents like Columbine more had with sexual frustration than it had with the Matrix or Marilyn Manson! But ofcourse that’s me and I grew up playing Liesure Suit Larry that my parents didn’t really know it was 🙂
A sad day for trekkers & sci-fi : Scotty has been beamed up. See you up there lad!