stoff
This will be my last update as a 20-something guy. In 6 hours I’ll be a 30-something guy. So let us recap the past 10 years:
After 1 academically failed year at the University in Växjö, I moved back home, got a job I liked at great company. Got new friends, co-started a Trekker organization, started my home theater system, got an interest for Formula 1, got to go to Greece, got a promotion, got to go to Kenya. Moved to my own place (blasting housewarming party!). Got another promotion to the best job I’ve ever had (developing our e-commerce site), took a few trips on the party-boats over to Finland (another blasting party on my 25th birthday). Company went broke, got a drivers license, re-educated myself to pc techie, started working a little off and on at a lawfirm. Celebrated one sister’s 30th birthday in scotland, lost my best friend, got a job at the state department, travelled around the world, celebrated the other sister’s 30th birthday, visited Africa while suffering from salmonella and then got to go to Italy. Helped organize the first Star Trek Convention in sweden (ever) and spend a few days in the company of Tim Russ. Had a few lazy months as a consultant inbetween jobs. Finally got the boot and a headache that won’t go away and got a steady job at the lawfirm and bought the last piece for a home theater (projector)… and that brings us up to date.
Overall a good 10-year run I think. And to start my 30’s I’m gonna have a good get together tonight at The Dubliner tomorrow night (everyone’s invited) and then off to see the F1 race at Silverstone!
I hate being predictable. But right on time I’m having the predictable “where’s my life”-going thoughts that everyone has when they turn 30. Or is it “should have”? I’ve never had a problem with any of it, but here I am. And ofcourse it doesn’t help when speaking to an old collegue that just became a father (congrats Anton!), and other friends settling down and stuff. But I ain’t mad. It’s just a number 🙂
Over the past few days I’ve been corresponding with a person in the USA about some of the stuff I wrote in my essay-things a while back. “A while back” in this case is 2001. But since then I’ve done alot and seen alot and I realise that I was pretty naive and inexperienced when I wrote some of those a few years back. So to use the same cliché again – “if I knew then what I know now”. So I really should go through and update them. But I didn’t know people still read them!
I think I may very well be a hypochondriac. And thinking you’re a hypochondriac pretty much proves it, doesn’t it? I think I’ve gone through all kinds of theories behind this ever lasting headache, from simple wisdomtooth to tumor and I don’t know how many times I’ve killed myself with all deceases I’ve given myself! And today I woke up with pain in my abdomen, but that I just blame on my pills of iron I’m taking to make up for the blood donation the other day. But not after thinking my appendix was about to burst. As I said, hyponcriac alert! Is that the price you pay for watching too much ER?
One more reminder “all good things must come to an end” is Ferrari’s performance in F1 right now. Or lack thereof. It was bound to end and we’ve been spoilt with wins over the past 4 years. But it’s still fun to watch and read, especially when planet-f1.com writes stuff like this:
Jarno Trulli’s pass on Fisichella was a bit like sex for the first time: It was fumbly, it was awkward and embarrassing, but he knew he had to go through with it. It didn’t work out for him, but hey, we’ve all been there.
Another thing that works awesome with my home cinema is the Eurovision Song Contest. Usually it was just pretty fun to watch, but now it’s quiet an experience seeing it in 100″ and the thumping sound. And “thumping” is pretty accurate since every damn number had thumping drums all the time. Still think Hungary should’ve won. One of the things I enjoyed was all the BOOOING all the friends-voting got, like Scandinavian countries voting for eachother no matter how sucky the songs are. That’s usually just an accepted behavior, but now they got alot of boooooos 🙂
You know what I can’t get? Sunglasses for $500?? Exactly what do they do that the ones I buy ($20) don’t? I’m not a cheap guy, I paid extra for my projector because it had features and i/o ports that I needed so I’ll pay for something with more features and stuff. But sunglasses? They only have two features – fade and look cool. That’s it! So why would do people sell and buy glasses for $500??? I’ve never understood that. And since I go through 3-4 per year you can imagine why I only buy cheap ones.
I hate wanting to kick myself in the ass saying “if I knew then what I know now…”. I usually say it when thinking about how I hated school or something that’s a few years off, but in the past two days I’ve gone through my last two years of updates and reading all the stuff when I was travelling and all I have to say to myself is “if I knew then what I know now”. But “then” in this case is only two years ago. Which means I must’ve learnt alot of stuff in the past two years. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling so indifferent to my current job, cause let’s face it, you can’t beat travelling the world, staying for 2 weeks in every country, living in hotels, doing something you’re good at, eating at restaurants everyday, making tons of money and everything on the tax payers dollars.
(yes Ricki, I know!)
I invite everyone who thought that buying a new projector and stuff for $2.500 was a stupid idea to come on over to my apartment and see Flatley’s “Feet of Flames”. Wowsy how grand it looked at 100″. And it’s always a bitter reminder of my # 2 regret of my childhood – I shouldn’t have dropped out of dance school.
Well the past 24 hours have been really, really depressing! One of the things I hate about life is when good things end, which as everyone knows has to happen. Like when you get fired from your job and thus losing touch with alot of friends. Or when you’ve gotten used to travelling around the world and all of a sudden that ends. Well on friday night I finally saw the last episodes of “Babylon 5” (still one of the best written TV shows ever!) and the last two episodes are all about this, good things that come to an end. And today I saw the last episode of modern Star Trek. End of an era. For the first time since 1987 there won’t be a new Star Trek episode made for quite a while. And before I was ready to accept that, Sweden got knocked out of the world championship in one of the best games I’ve seen in a long, long time. So yeah, all good things still come to an end. But still, this was a very rewarding saturday.
Yesterday as I was walking along Kungsgatan I noticed a bunch of people putting up tents and stuff and forming a long line outside one of our biggest cinema’s, Rigoletto. To any normal average Joe this might’ve looked weird and stupid and made no sense what so ever. Not to me. To me it’s inspiring to see how this many people can be so dedicated to a movie saga that they’ll sleep on the streets just to be sure to get the tickets for the first showing of the new Star Wars movie. Other people may think it’s geeky and looooooser-style, but I respect it. If I didn’t have a job, if sweden was knocked out of the hockey championship and if I had a tent, I might have joined them. But nah, I’ll just wait ’til Monday when I can order the tickets online!
Remember how I’m always saying that music was better in the 80’s and even 90’s? Well here we go again – after seeing the Live Aid concert on DVD I ordered Queen’s Wembley concert from 1986. And – wow! There really isn’t any group in todays pop-scene that can even come close to rocking that place that much! Just awesome. And a little emotional too when Freddie says that the band is gonna be together until they “f*cking die”. Good show.
Finally! After years and years of debating illegal downloads of MP3 and stuff we FINALLY get Apple’s music store here in sweden! For a country as high up on the IT scale it took way too long! Just wish it was a little bit cheaper but it’ll do for downloading those old 80’s tracks that noone seems to be posting in those free (read “illegal”) places.
My doctor just called. All the tests they did on all my blod last friday showed that I’m… in perfect health. I don’t even have a high sugar- or cholesterol level. Which makes me think they must’ve messed up ’cause with all the junkfood, and the bag of crisps I had the day before, there’s no way everything should be normal. But it is. Which eliminates most theories about my headache.
Well that was a very relaxing weekend that I certainly needed! On friday I enjoyed some Underworld and Higlander on my new projector I bought myself as a 30th birthday gift, on saturday I enjoyed a Star Trek videoday with friends and trekkers and ended with a good hockeygame as Sweden crushed Canada and then on Sunday I slept late, enjoyed a (disappointing) Formula 1 race at O’Learys with both of my sisters and finished with another hockeygame as Sweden got crushed by the US of A. All in all – GREAT WEEKEND!
Ever since Christmas I’ve had this small tiny itsy-bitsy headache. I haven’t felt it that much and haven’t even been bothered by it since most of the time I don’t even think about it. But when I’m sitting still not getting much sensory input from anything I’ve always felt it. And in the past month it’s gotten worse and started to bother me so I finally gave up and went to see the Doctor – AGAIN! Ever since my salmonella I’ve been in and out of there more than I ever thought possible for a normal healthy close-to-30 person. I was ready for anything from brain tumor to just lack of B12 or whatever. But headaches are such a non-descriptive thing that she really didn’t know what was wrong. She took tons of blood to analyze (6 vials!) and I’m off to the dentist to make sure it’s not a wisdom tooth that’s creating tension in my head. But she wrote off the tumor thing way too quickly though. Here’s hoping she knows more than Mr. “I’ve watched ER too much”. She also ordered more sun.. ? I thought that was just something your parents said when they think you’re spending too much time in front of the computer! (and yes, I have TFT screens both at home and work so it’s not that!)
Long time no update but that’s gonna change. I made a conscious decision and just stopped playing WoW. It was sucking too much of my free time that I usually spend with friends, family or television. And 10 years ago that might’ve been alright, but I’m almost 30 and supposed to be more mature than that!…
Who am I kidding ? 🙂
Wanna hear something depressing and deep? Well, you’re gonna:
Somehow your standard of living got stuck on survive.
Again my life has fallen into a comfortable weekly routine that I’m just going along with waiting for something to happen. First time I got this feeling I ended up travelling around the world. Second time I got it I ended up unemoployed. So I wonder what’s in store for me this time… and oh yeah, quote by Jewel. Ofcourse.
I tried donating blood the other day. Everytime I’ve done that I’ve had to fill in a yes/no form asking stuff like “have you been in africa” or “have you gotten a new tattoo” and stuff like that, basically make sure you haven’t done anything that could change the composition of your blood since the last time you donated. I’ve never really paid that much attention to it (and I’m suppose to work at a lawfirm!). Well, there’s one in there saying “Have you had a new sexual partner”. Well, if you check the “yes”-box there, you’re not allowed to donate blood for three months afterwards. FYI.
You know, I wish something REALLY exciting could happen so I can post something.. I mean, I’ve been Bush-bashing for over a year now so that’s boring. And I could post about the terrible state of music when an idiotic & uncharacteristic song like “Money for nothing” is played all day here in sweden but it feels like I’ve done that enough too. Or maybe I’m just too busy playing World of Warcraft to notice what’s going on.