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Wow, this weekend was so full of sports I feel like… manly 🙂 Football quadrupled and Formula 1! Boy am I happy I’ve got a sportsbar right down here in the square in Brussels (at the end of Luxemburg street). And the swedish soccer girls didn’t really win the world championship, but I can’t really say they lost it either. They didn’t go like “oh no, we got hammered by US of A, and then USA got hammered by Germany, so what chance do we have against Germany?” and play dead, they put up a helluva fight.
And here’s a question that will make me sound like a sexist or something, but really, this is all about equality… why don’t the girls trade shirts after soccer games like the guys do? Come on, the girls get a looong good look at Beck’s pex (I just thought of that), why can’t I get… I’ll stop it right there. As I said, all about equality baby!
Seriously though – amazing job girls!!
So Bush have done it again. Come up with a great quote that might have sounded good in… well, somewhere like in an empty head – “no civilized democratic country would develop weapons of mass destruction”. Says the man in charge of the only country to ever have used Da Bomb. For military purposes anyway.
Two things about my personality that has recently come under fire – 1) My lack of “taking charge” and actually do something about that thing I’ve wanted to fix for a while. And 2) I’m a terrible interior decorator (so much for me being gay!… ok, that one was prejudicial, but I’m trusting you see the humor in it!). As most of my friends will tell you I usually need a good kick in the ass to to do something. Doesn’t matter if it’s deciding which restaurant to eat at or to change the wall my bed faces (hey, that’s one underestimated issue to think about!). And if there was a swedish version of the Fab 5 they’d have their first mission right here! But since we don’t my friends took it upon themselfes to just swing by here on a calm saturday and literally drag me to Mio and buy some new shit for my place. And I’m grateful they did because I probably would never have gotten out of the apartment today had they not shown up. Not to mention my apartment looks a liiiiiitle bit better now. And when it comes to my living room, the old styling saying of “a quick look and get rid of the first thing that you notice” wouldn’t work since the first thing I notice is my TV and my speakers since their kinda too big to NOT notice. So I guess that size does matter… and we’re back to being gay again…
Can you tell I’ve been up way way too long with far too little sleep by the way I’m babbling now?… thought so!
Well that “haven’t been in a car accedient” luck that I was living all year was bound to come to an end. Once again it was in a round about, I was in it and a guy didn’t see me (?) and just smashed into me. Car is f*cked up, but guess what? I’m TOTALLY ok with it! “Why?” Because I’m a down to earth guy and I knew it was only a matter of time until I was gonna collide with someone. I’ve just been waiting for it to happen, trying to avoid it. And as I said, this time it wasn’t my fault, which takes care of my insurance problem. And what’s even better – noone got hurt! Since it was in the middle of a round about there were no high speeds to talk about, just pure inertia based on weight so there wasn’t any real danger. So I’m totally ok. After all, it was a friday, I’ve just gotten the Dead Zone DVD box and UFO – Aftermath so I’m still happy.
Speaking of Dead Zone, it now dominates my “hottest comments” of all time:
1) “Let’s make a hockey team!” and 2) “Resistance is futile.”
Ok, so you probably have to see the episodes in question (“1” is from the pilot and “2” is from “Date with Dana”) to get the context. But trust me, they were hot! Speaking of hot – how about this!
So who would have thought that Sweden would ever beat Brazil in football? I mean in real life football, not any cyberversion? I never thought that’d happend. But yesterday “we” did! And I’m proud to be a swede when they did it. Hockey WC gold in all honor, but beating Brazil in a quarter final felt a hell of a lot better. And the way they did it… way to go girls!! (or do they prefer “women”?) Now let’s see if they’ll be greeted in the same way when they come back as the guys in 1994 were. Even though Sweden is a model of equality between the sexes (we even changed our constitution so that a woman can and will inherit the crown!), I doubt it. Unless ofcourse they win the entire thing. Which they will!
Best quote of the year – “Leaks of classified information are bad things”. Wow, what rocket scientist said that?… noone, it was the President of the US of A… that Bush guy continues to surprise me, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. I don’t consider myself a political person, but when it comes to him I just can’t lay off it…
Go see “Bowling for Columbine”. I’ve always been critical of the sloppy gun regulations and the attitude of the NRA in the states. But after seeing this documentary I can relax knowing that me and Moby aren’t the only ones who thinks something is pretty screwed up “over there”. Although it was pretty one-sided, biased, Moore was set to get Wal Mart and Heston, but what I really liked was when he just went off to places not knowing what he’d find, like in Canada. And after this documentary, you gotta like Canada 🙂
Sad day today. It may be friday, it may be day after pay day and I might have a great weekend ahead of me. But… Robert Palmer died the other day of a heart attack. At 54. And both “Addicted to love” and “Simply Irresistable” were some of my favorite tracks. So sad.
But on a happier note : The US vs France war of words continues.
I like shopping over the web. It’s much more relaxed, you can do your research and there are fewer chances of spontaneous unecessary purchases. But then there are the very bad things, like when I decided I needed a DVD recorder. Costs about $550. Then I also needed a new scart cable for it and that was only $30. And today I got the e-mail saying it would be delivered in mid-november!? Only because they didn’t have that freaking cable in stock the system holds the entire order. Actually had to call their customer service to fix that. I guess programming that little additional intelligence was too much for them…
Today was the memorial service for our Anna Lindh. Beautiful event, although I think they could have been a little more low key than shutting down half the inner city. And I had just made it back to Arlanda and got in my car and turned on the radio to haer the live broadcast. I gotta give it up to Eva Dahlgren, who’s music I’ve never been a huge fan of, but to be able to stand there and sing those songs without breaking out in tears, which I did and I wasn’t even there!, absolutely fabulous. (And if someone could get Jewel for my funeral, that’d be great…)
Do you watch CNBC? I very rarely do since it’s 99% financial news and I’m simply not that into it. But I accidentally flipped it on on thursday and heard what may be the best quote this year. “Hurricane Isabell closes Washington and shuts down the federal government… will anyone notice?”. I thought that was hilarious. And if you’re wondering why I’m not updating as much as I used to… recent events have made it less fun posting stuff here, hopefully that’ll pass and I’ll get into the spirit of things again.
So no to the Euro, huh? Damn, was kinda hoping that somehow all the polls would be wrong and the rest of the swedes would actually say yes to the Euro. I’m a trekker and hence for all attempts of globalization and in the wonderful world of Star Trek money isn’t an issue. Not to humans anyway. So discarding one global currency would be a lot easier than trying to get every country to discard their currency. Byt anyway, to snap us back to today, what will this mean for us swedes? Well, it can’t make things better, right? No anti-Euro person ever said having the SEK would make things better, just not worse like they thought Euro might be. Me, I’m a gambling man so I’d rather take the chance of getting things better than stay the same.
And oh yeah, we get to keep control of our economy here in Stockholm instead of down in EU HQ Brussels. And here I thought one of the lessons of 2001 was that the financial world is intertwined and what happens in the States will affect us here in Sweden. And everytime there’s a price increase for gas here in Sweden they blame it on the dollar, but yeah, I’m glad we get to have control of our finances here in Stockholm. And noone will dismantle our great social security net that the anti-Euro people were talking about. And here I thought our social security net was more a state of mind, more bread into the Swedish consciousness than it was bound to our currency. Thanx for destroying that illusions on a “might”/”if”/”perhaps”.
Soon shopping at Arlanda airport will be like shopping in Copenhagen airport – you will be able to shop with both the local currency and the Euro only to confuse the customers left and right.
But what do I know, I’m just a good little worker ant.
Today I did something I knew I had to do but didn’t think I’d get the chance – visit a concentration camp! “Schindler’s List” is one of my favorite movies and “Surviving Auschwitz” my favorite book so I felt I had to see one for myself. And just outside Gdansk is Sztutowo with the “Stutthof” camp. Very emotional just being there! Most of the place had been tored down but some of it was still there, a few barracks and ofcourse the gas chamer and the cremation building. And I have to disagree with whoever said the holocause was one of mankinds biggest mistakes because to me, mistakes are acidental and not pre-planned. And places like this was the very opposite of that, very cold calculated brutality. Definitely mankinds darkest hour though.
Not only is it the 2nd anniversary of what happened in NYC & Washington, now September 11th will be a day of mourning here in sweden as well. One of the few politicians I’ve had the most respect and admiration for passed away after being stabbed yesterday. And she might not have been the best politician around since she was so… good, decent, well mannored and alot of things politicians shouldn’t be. And she would have made an awesome prime minister one day already having worked up the respect of international politicans. But because she decided to do what alot of other people take for granted – just going out shopping – we’ll never know.
Anna Lindh – here’s hoping you’ll atleast get to rule heaven.
I don’t know why I bother watching the VMA’s anymore. It must be the “I’m too old for this shit” syndrome or something like that, but I haven’t enjoyed an MTV award show since the MTV EMA in Stockholm 2000… But like last years MTV EMA’s, the only thing I liked was the opening (Madonna, Britney and Christina) and closing (Metallica) acts.
And while I was writing that I thought of another reason I might not like these shows, a fact that may make me sound a bit rascist but I trust you know me better than that – out of everyone that got awards, how many were white? Coldplay and Linkin Park were the closest one, if you disregard “why oh god wasn’t I born black” Eminem or Justin “I wanna be Michael Jackson so hard I even twist my nuts just so I get the same high pitch voice” Timberlake. Or wait, does it make me a rascist not liking Jay Z, 50 Cents, Piff Diddly, Ashanti, Missy Elliot or whatever everyone’s names are? Now I know what black people must feel like when watching sci-fi…
And while I’m on the subject – how many people would laugh at Chris Rock if he was white? Not many, ’cause he’d be in jail for being the most rascist person on the planet. But he’s black, so that’s ok 🙂 But his joke about Coldplay was pretty funny – it is damn depressing hearing that guy laying all his heartache in that “I’m fighting back my tears”-voice.
But that’s just about the music, I did enjoy other parts of the show, Black is always hilarious and those gay interior designer guys were hilarious, loved their expressions when Madonna was bringing down the house.
Hehe, what can I say, go Britney and Madonna 🙂 I’ve always liked Madonna and her no-bs approach to things. Might even get to like Britney if she keeps that up 🙂 But more about the VMA’s in a later update.
But it kinda reminds me about a Deep Space Nine episode that I saw, very recently – “Rejoined”. An episode about homosexuality, without homosexuality ever being an issue but so totally in your face when Terry & Susanne gets it on 🙂 Yeap, got season 4 of DS9 on DVD so I’m kinda in DVD hibernation now, expecting to come out of it late on Saturday.
Saw “The Core” the other day. I actually didn’t think a movie could disregard real physics more than “Armageddon” did. But “The Core” did. Pretty damn obvious who was gonna die, sometimes even how! I particularly liked the “404 access denied” error. (404 is actually “not found”)
Also saw “Identity”. Very, very good movie. Although you it shouldn’t be sold as a “who did it” story.
Then I also saw “Down With Love”, that 60’s type movie with Renee Z. (not even gonna try with her last name) and McEwan (how many got that joke?) about the battle of the sexes. And it was one of the most booring filmes I’ve ever seen. Had it not been for Niles Crane it would have tried to reclaim the 2 hours I lost watching it. And then there was Jeri Ryan. For about 2 minutes.
Finished it off with “Lost Summer”, that “Project Greenlight” movie with the guy that got his dream movie made. And it was slightly less boring than “Down With Love”, but only because of Aidan Quinn and Kevin Pollak. Both of them are cool and good in just about anything they do.
Do you like “what if”-ing? I love it. Thinking about those small little events in your life that have had a huge impact. Like “what if I hadn’t by accident heard of that computer course at Thorildplans that turned out to be the best year of school ever” and “what if I hadn’t wasted a year in college”, “what if I had gotten the first job I applied to” (it was just a freak accident I didn’t get it!), “what if I had taken up the offer of joining the old MinDator crew at ITF”, what if… Had any of these things happened I wouldn’t be where I am today. It might have been better, it may have been worse, I have no idea. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I like “Dead Zone” so much – they are really great at “what if”-ing. They visualize the possible consequences of the choices the characters are forced to make. I’ve exceeded my download ratio, TWICE, downloading this show that I’m liking more and more. More thoughtful and deep shows like this please!
Ok, now why haven’t I been updating this place in almost a week, and wouldn’t have done so tonight either if my mother hadn’t called to check up on me? I mean, even when I’m out travelling, even when the hotels don’t have any internet connection, I’m still able to update this place more often than that, right? Well, it’s… kinda like nothing much have been happening to report about. Compared to being out travelling, seeing new cities, meeting different people, speaking other languages, learning how to appreciate different foods and just admiring the beauty that is life… well, compared to that nothing much have been happening on the 67 square meters that is my (rented) place on Earth. I’ve been entertaining some friends, and over the past two days I’ve been busy watching movies and launching the new and improved NP.com. We’ll talk more about those movies and “The Dead Zone” later, right now I gotta go to bed and get some rest for the coming week that I’ll spend at the lawfirm. Atleast 8-5. That is unless someone calls me because… that’s right, I’m on call this week too 🙂