| Goodbye 2001! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
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Ok, that will take time to adapt - 2002 :) I'm not going into details about yesterday, I'll just say it was the best possible way to start 2002. Let's hope all airplanes can stay in the air this year :(
I saw "Lord of the Rings" today. I've never read the books, I've been totally ignorant to the world of Tolkien. So I had no expectations whatsoever. The movie is visually great! Borderlining "stunning", but not quite there. Beautiful landscapes, nice CGI army and a great cast (for once I actually liked Liv Tyler in a movie!), nice fighting scenes. But the story was way too slow for me. And I've never really liked the land of fantasy that much (with the exception of "Mio, min Mio").I'll have no trouble waiting for the next one. But I'm cracking of anticipation for SW Episode II !
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| Short but sweet |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, January 5th, 2002
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Well that was fun while it lasted. I'm now single again :)
The story of a 7 day romance
A friend of mine set us up. He knew and what I liked in a woman, and his girlfriend knew this girl so they set it up.
First date, Saturday : Nice romantic dinner in a little quiet Italien restaurant. Everything went great. We had a really good time and liked each other. But it didn't go all the way, although I did accompany her home, but that was it. We did agree to spend New Years Eve together so I called off my prior plans to party with some friends.
Second date, Tuesday : We decided it was best to go home to her since I can't cook and my place is a mess. Once again a very nice romantic dinner followed, and then alot of talking, watching fireworks, then proceeding to bed and afterwards continued talking. (for once, I had no problem staying awake) Everything was peachy.
Third-kinda date, Wednesday : This was "e;kinda"e; third, but not really since it was just a continuation from Tuesday. We eventually got out of bed and went into Stockholm to see "e;Lord of the Rings"e;. Three hours in a 10% full cinema. Perhaps that's why I didn't like it, I was only semi-watching it. We kissed off at the trainstation and agreed to spend this weekend together. No specifics, just "weekend".
Fourth date, Friday : Little did I know "e;weekend"e; meant comming home to my place at 8 on friday evening! I barely had time to clean up my apartment. Anyway, I did manage to fix a dinner and we sat in my soffa talking the night away while watching "Friends" on DVD. That's when it started going bad! She noticed my pictures of Jeri Ryan, Natalie Portman and Helen Hunt on my wall, and she...
STOP! "Don't tell me you left your pics of beautiful women hanging on the wall!?" Indeed I did! First of all, she had a poster of a semi-naked Marcus Shenkenberg (swedish modell) on her wall. And B - she had a pic of a topless Brad Pitt as her background on her computer. And finally, I didn't have time since she just popped in unannounced.
Anyway, she, based on those and some of my DVD's, thought I was a little fixed on beautiful women. I tried to turn that around to a compliment, no luck. Then we had a serious debate about it, but she still wasn't totally convinced. Night proceeded great and I feel asleep spooning her. Isn't that nice?
Fifth-kinda date, Saturday : Again, it was a continuation so not really "fifth". She got up earlier than me (big shock, huh?) and started surfing around the web on my computer which is...
STOP! "Don't tell me you left your computer on and logged in giving her access to all files on your computers!?" I indeed did. I didn't think she would surf around or check around my local network. She did surf some, but didn't check around my local network, so no worries there. And there's nothing on any of my computers I can't defend having there!
So, anyway!! My computer is constantly connected to the web, with ICQ always running and my mailer checking mail once every minute and I also have a "To-do-list" in the background. As she was surfing she noticed I had a lot of bookmarks in my browser pointing to Natalie Portman pages. And then she intercepted a couple ICQ messages about NataliePortman.com and my swedish Natalie site. And when my mailer get's a mail it kinda lites up so she was curious what that flying bat was about and clicked it and saw (yes, I believe this was unintentional!) some mails about a new chat project on NataliePortman.com and another mail about redoing an image-archive page.
She closed it down and when she closed it down my "To do list" was just behind it and that was filled with NataliePortman.com things. She went to shower and that's when I woke up, checked my mail and started writing a couple of SHTML-pages on this chat-project. That's when she came in here, saw what I was doing and right away freaked how much work I actually put into these pages and projects. "About 5-10 hours per week, depending on how much there is to do" (sometimes more for special projects). So again we had a debate that was going badly for both of us, and when she was beginning to say "I'm not comfortable having a boyfriend who spends this much time working (non-profit) on a page dedicated to this girl, that you also have a (signed) picture of on your wall and..."
That's when I stopped her because I saw exactly where she was going and told her "Don't give me the ultimatum to give up a part of my life, you'll loose. We haven't reached that stage in our relationship yet!".
And thus, I'm single again. So why am I writing this here, although I've said once I'd not bother you guys with my romantical life?
Because I need your advice on this!
First of all, if I was in a serious relationship I would on my own free will give up this specific part of my life. For example, I freely called off my 3-months old plans to spend New Years with some friends and spend it with her! And I know that a big part of a relationship is making compromises. And I'm all for that, as a relationship goes on! Not after 7 days, that's just too early for her to make demands like that. Isn't it ? I could ofcourse have saved this relationship by doing things like taking down the pictures of women on my wall, limiting the access on my computer when I'm not here, and say "sorry, you're right, I'll mail the guys at NP.com and tell them I quit". I could have done that. But then it wouldn't be me! She wouldn't be dating me anymore! She would be dating another Kris, the Kris who's already showed her who's the boss and constantly worry about offending his new girlfriend.
So what do you think? Am I stupid for not changing the way I am to please a woman I've just started dating? Does she have the right to demand that of me already? Am I just idiotic and immature for still having beautiful pictures of women on my wall? (another comment on those pictures - they are beautiful and stylish, not at all sexy!)
And was she fair starting this discussion when she just got out of the shower only wearing a towel when she knows this is a turn-on for me?!
I just want to make this last point very clear - I did not give this woman up for any fantasy or obsession involving Natalie Portman! She could have asked me to give up Formula 1, same result. She could have asked me to give up "Star Trek", wearing black or singing in the shower, it would have ended the same way.
Please send in any comments or advice you may have on this, I could really use it!
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| Take my advice, I don't use it anyway |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, January 12th, 2002
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The reason I haven't been updating is that I wanted to get as many mails as possible about the recent events. And I've gotten alot of them, most of which agree with me. For a while there I was worried I'd gotten this entire relationship/love thing all wrong, but most people seem to agree that I shouldn't change or give up a part of my life just because a woman demands it.
There was however three good points made against me, one of which from friends of mine!
The first one said that it was typically male to loose interest in a woman once he'd gotten her in bed. I can't answer on behalf of all the men in the world, but that is totally untrue, and in this case, got me even more interested in this woman.
The second one said I shouldn't be surprised she was making demands as if we were a steady couple already because I had rushed things so much. Did we rush things? I don't know about the rest of the world, but I don't think we rushed things that much?!
And then a friend (you know who you are!) told me "Kris, you spend too much time with your comp!" and suggested I should not be sitting in front of my computer when she was in the shower. Another (female) friend just said the same thing, although she went one step further - "you should have gotten into the shower with her!". In my defense, I know she didn't want me to because she had locked the door. (although I didn't know that at the time, I heard her unlocking it when she came out, and I remember wondering why she locked it, I mean I had already seen her naked...)
And for those of you who are curious about "what happened then?" - nothing. I haven't heard anything from her, and I'm not calling since I still don't see were I went wrong. And she knows this page exists (she read it on the sunday after our first date) so I presume she knows how I feel about all this.
Anyway, 7 weeks to go....
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| Quotes rocks |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, January 16th, 2002
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I heard another dead-on, totally perfect quote today :
"I don't love you because you're beautiful. You're beautiful because I love you."
Now who can argue with that? I have two examples which proves that theory, and they are both named Maria. I'm not gonna bother you with the sobby story about either of them, I'll just leave you to wonder about the quote yourself.
(of course, with my luck with women if I'd ever apply that quote the person on the receiving end would interpret it as "you aren't really good looking, but I like you anyway", which would be an insult... hm, loose-loose situation... kinda like the pants which are always the perfect size and never makes any part of the female body look too big!)
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| Useless update |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2002
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My sister (the one in Scotland) told me I should update more, so I am.
"There's nothing to report."
(quote from "Star Trek Deep Space Nine" when Odo is forced to make a log)
Less than 6 weeks to go...
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| Words don't come easy |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, January 27th, 2002
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I got a new favorite word - "pretencious". Can't go into any details since I'm working at a lawfirm and don't wanna get sued for slander.
On a totally different note - congrats to Thomas Johansson for winning the Australien Open. Which btw is totally related to my next statement : Five weeks to go...
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| Astrid, see you in heaven |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, January 28th, 2002
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Today is a day of mourning :( One of the greatest writers ever passed away today. Astrid Lindgren... damn.... damn... don't really know what to say about it..
She inspired so many people. She gave us all hope. She made things seem so much better. There's just no words to describe how I feel about her work, her books and children stories that I was brought up with. And not only me, the generation before as well as the one after me. She will be grately missed and I hope, if there is a heaven or a better place after death, she'll run it. Cause no one ever made me feel as ... as much as she did. I'm not an emotional person, but reading through "Mio min Mio" is an emotional roller coaster.
She will be missed by all. Except the Nobel foundation who missed the window of opportunity to give her a Prize for her incredible legacy! Shame on you!
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| Tone |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, January 31st, 2002
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Time for a little happier update : Tone Bekkestad. Tone is a Norwegian metrologist on Swedish TV4. And she always makes me smile! Not only because she's a beautiful woman, but because it's something so bizarre hearing a norwegian-speaking person talking Swedish geography and weather! Something bizarre, yet funny, about that! So by all means, carry on...
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| Billy Joel is right |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, February 3rd, 2002
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I recently saw an interview with Billy Joel. I haven't really been a big fan of his, he's done some pretty good songs over the years, but I like him more after this interview! First of all, he totally shares my opinion that the music industry is on an express elevator to hell as far as MUSIC is concerned, although the shows might be better now than they were 20 years ago, the music sure ain't!
But what I really liked was his reply to the question "are you happy?" - "happiness is an extreme, so you can't really be happy for an extended amount of time. But I believe being 'content' is underestimated". Damn right dude!
(that's not an exact quote, I wasn't recording it but that was essentially the point)
Btw, Sweden is (AGAIN!) the European champions in handboll. Joy! Anyways, less than 4 weeks to go...
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| Olympic ceremonies |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, February 9th, 2002
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So what did you think about the opening ceremony to the Olympics? I'm not sure I really wanna do this... yeah, I do:
Let's compare it to the Australian (which isn't fair since their's was (to quote a popular song right now) - absolutely flawless!)
When choosing who's gonna light the fire, do you either pay homage and respect to a people you've opressed for centuries (like the Aussies did by having Cathy Freeman light it) or do you show off a bunch of US Olympic winners skating and walking around finally handing the torch over to a bunch of hockeyplayers saying "these are the guys that won our only Olympic gold in hockey"? That's kinda sad considering what a great hockey nation they are!
I really wanna rip in to the opening part with the US flag and president... but I won't out of respect for Sept. 11th. But where it ended was when the chief organizer in his speech wanted the children to grow up in a country that wanted peace and respected the human rights. Well, "peace" isn't the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the States. And ask Amnesty just how much they like the US government. Hell, even the US president is a huge supporter of killing his own citizens. And speaking of children and human rights, have the US signed that UN resolution about children's rights yet? Last I heard they were oposed it because it prohibited the existence of minors in the army.
And what was with having everything told in French first then in english? That better be an Olympic custom I'm not aware of, 'cause otherwise I'm gonna have to use my favorite word at the moment - "pretencious". Btw, the concept of introducing things like that is a little rip-off from the Swedish intro to the European Song Contest 2000.
Speaking of rip-offs - that cute little girl in red that grew up to be a cute little figure-skater, constantly dressed in a screaming red while the people around her wore black and white, that kinda reminds me of a movie that had a cute little girl in red that ran around in a black and white environment. Yeah, "Schindler's List" during the Nazi's killing of Jews in the ghetto's. And that girl ended up dead. Thanx for reminding me.
Another rip-off - at the end they played Beethoven's 9th, my favorite. Remind you of another Olympic opening?... yeah, "Nagano"!
But comparing it to the Australian isn't fair for one more reason - they had a huge stadium. And what was this, a little hockey arena? Seriously, I expected a lot more show from the American's and had hoped for a lot less patriotism. Was disappointed on both accounts.
3 weeks to go. (and no, I'm not counting down to the end of the Olympics)
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| Brian Biotano |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, February 13th, 2002
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Ok, so perhaps I was a bit too harsh about the Olympic opening. Sure there were good things, like Leann Rimes and ofcourse a person who holds a very special place in any "South Park"-fan's heart - Brian Boitano!
So far, the show's been a bit of a let-down, but that's probably because the hockey hasn't really begun yet!
On a completely different note, remember how much I dislike the modern music industry? Well, it seems my idol and role model Kevin Smith totally agrees with me. (or perhaps it's the other way around?). I read a recently published article he wrote about how much he dislikes Britney Spears. And his conclusion was... obvious! ("People are into Britney Spears because they want to fuck Britney Spears")
But although it was obvious, it still takes a man like Kevin to actually say it and to make it sound good! Check out his articles here.
Two weeks and three days to go....
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| More thoughts |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, February 19th, 2002
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Inspired by Kevin Smith's bashing of Spears, I've written another one of my "Kristoffer's thoughts on..."
Just over a week left now...
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| Hockey! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, February 21st, 2002
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LOL! A BIG LOUD LAUGH AND A GOOD SMILE! I'm ofcourse talking about the hockey fiasco yesterday. Actually I guess I should say - THE OLYMPIC FIASCO DURING THE PAST TWO WEEKS!
Before the Olympics started, most people said "we'll win 10 medals, easily!". I wasn't one of them. Then everyone kept talking how great Per Elofsson and Magda was and how they'd rule, and the swedish hockey team! We had all the NHL stars and everything was going our way. But it just wasn't our Olympic game.
And do you know who I blame for getting me disappointed? The hockeyplayers for doing their best on a bad day? Salo, the goalie who made one mistake and one slip? NO! THE PRESS. THE MEDIA! The so called experts! Haha on them, they were all frigging wrong! I don't think they should demand anyone to resign, if anyone should it should be them! If they hadn't been experting all over pumping up the hopes for swedish medals I wouldn't be disappointed now!
But as always - LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE! Sweden has 4 medals right now. One silver belonging to a no-name (actually his nams is Rickard Rickardsson, no joke!), but still, noone expected the snowboarders to get a medal. (again, the experts should resign!) But the greatest thing is - the three bronzes all came from chicks! 3/4 medals are thanx to women. Let's just hope the swedish female hockey team can take home the glory of the bronze medal and it'll be "Women 4 - Guys 1". Haha, I was laughing all the way to work this morning, Belarus (or however they spell it), they had one NHL star and unfortunately the better goalie... I just love an underdog!
One week and one day left....
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| Ladies, gotta love 'em |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, February 24th, 2002
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Things worked out even better for the ladies than I had hoped - the hockey-chicks got bronze and then Anja got the silver. So that makes the score "Women 5 - Guys 1". But I stopped caring after the hockey game... haha :) Still laughing at that game! :)
Less than week to go!!!
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| Pay day! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, February 25th, 2002
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Payday in Sweden. For most people anyway. Unless you didn't know, we only get paid once a month in sweden, and most people get it on the 25th (although that depends on the company you're working for).
Anyway, I got a real "heard of them first and got the T-shirt to prove it"-story. Guess who's topping the charts here in Stockholm and who is played constantly on the radio and European MTV?... check my update on December 30th :)
5 days to go!
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| Worst day of my life |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, February 25th, 2002
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Today I got one of the worst calls a person can receive... my best friends is dead...
my best friends is dead...
my best friends is dead...
my best friends is dead...
my best friends is dead...
... ???? !!!!!
.... my best friends is dead........
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| Deal with it |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, February 26th, 2002
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How tha fuck do you deal with this kind of thing? I'm doing my best trying to be optimistic, and then trying to think of all the good times I had with my friend, but every time I'm hit with the thought about all the good times we never had... like another friends wedding this summer, that was gonna be a blast... shit... I know you're not suppose to feel this way, but I keep on feeling guilty for all things I didn't do, for all times I wasn't with him because I was too busy doing my own thing. and then I realise how fucking egoistic that is... but.. fuck, my best friend is gone... it feels so surreal, I spoke with him on sunday evening, and now he's gone.
Nothing more I can say to him. Nothing more I can do with him, no more beer, no more watching "Star Trek" every week, no more...
It's so fucking sad loosing someone you know so well and you're on the same wave-length... we could just go on laughing for hours about something weird, or be in a room and one would say "you're all different" and the other one would reply "I'm not".. we knew each other so well and could finish each others sentences... no more of that..
My best friend is dead...
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| Still dealing |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, February 27th, 2002
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My best friend is gone. The shock has subsided. I've accepted it. Now I'm just waiting for the real shock when I realise I haven't heard his voice in a while, seen his face, when I haven't exchanged any new Star Trek jokes, when the next "Enterprise" episode airs and I'll have to watch it alone... that's when I'm expecting the second wave... now begins the unavoidable aftermath and trying to pick up the pieces. We'll see how that goes. But for now, the small step has been to accept it and regain some emotional equilibrium (I just threw that one in because my mother complained I couldn't spell, and that's a hard word to spell!). Let's see how it goes to go back to work. I've already tried once, didn't get very far.
And just to make something very clear - the countdown I've been having for the past two months have been for the Australian Grand Prix, the opening of the F1 2002 season. As if that has any importance anymore.
My best friend is gone. I've accepted it now. Even though I can't make any sense of it.
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| Feeling weird |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, February 28th, 2002
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Try and remember your weirdest dream, the one where nothing made sense and just weirded you out that you're imagination is that weird. Well that's the feeling I got today when I was sitting in an office planning my best friends funeral. Totally surreal and bisarre. That's not the way it's suppose to be! I'm the one always joking about not living past 60!
Now try and remember the most awkward moment, the one when you just didn't know what to do and what to say. Then try to imagine coming up with anything to say to this very sweet couple who just lost their only child!
Am I being too egoistic here?
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| Exhausted |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, March 2nd, 2002
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Yesterday I was emotionally exhausted! All this planning and talking is just exhausting. And today I'm physically exhausted. But that's what you get when you're up till 4.30 am to watch the F1 qualifying. That was an attempt at resuming normal life again.
Semi-succeeded. I think I've tried every therapy there is. Except the one that takes two.
If I work really hard to find some positive thing, it's gotta be that now I have to plan my own funeral because I don't wish anyone to have to go through what we have. So when I'm back to normal I'll start writing all things down, what I want my funeral to be like. Just in case I'd be hit by a truck or something...
(and no, I'm not suicidal!)
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| Thinking ahead |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, March 3rd, 2002
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As promised, here is a page explaining how I'd want my funeral to be like, as well as some notes about "who gets what".
Don't think I'm suicidal or anything, it's just that I don't want anyone to have to go through what we've gone through in the last week. So to spare some practical problems, here are my wishes.
(yes, I know I should print and sign it to make it legally binding, but I'm trusting everyone will get along without contesting anything)
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| Go go! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, March 5th, 2002
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Damn I hate funerals. I've been to four of them, and they have all pretty much sucked. I guess it's because I'm just such a positive, optimistic happy guy that I just can't take 50 or so people being that depressed and sad. And I have another one coming up next week. But as oppose to the other ones, this is someone who was really, really close to me. So I'll be working all week trying to work up strength and courage to go there and get through it.
But on an optimistic note - guess who won... no, that's not it... kicked ass?... no, not that either... DOMINATED the first Grand prix of the year? Ferrari baby, yeah! Over a second faster in training sessions, took pole with 0.4 seconds and even after one of them created some havoc and the other one slipping down to 4th by the first curve, they still came out on top with some 20 seconds to spare. And the best part of it - it was all done using last year's cars!!
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| Mood for bad jokes |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, March 10th, 2002
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Wanna hear a bad joke? "What is the one event you don't want a front-row seat to?" - "A funeral".
I've found that the best way to deal with this is humor. Anyway, somehow I wound up as the person responsible for giving a eulogy for my friends funeral. Is that heavy or what, and not in a good way!
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| Dirty jokes |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, March 13th, 2002
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One thing I've been accused of by some acquiantances of mine is that I'm not much for sex-jokes. That I don't have what it takes to either get or tell really raunchy sex jokes. That's not true. The main reason why people have this perception of me is that most of the time there are women around and my mother did such a terrible overkill with my upbringing that I can't get into that dirty state of mind with women around (with some exceptions ofcourse). But I do have a dirty side, otherwise I wouldn't have been laughing my ass off over this picture! "Lesbians against Bush"... so they're all shaved or what!? ("and I don't mean your legs!" - 'Don Cleveland' (Morris Day) in "Ford Fairlane")
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| Here we go |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, March 14th, 2002
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Last minute preperations... here goes... if you wanna make a surprise appearence, here's some info about the service.
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| The funeral |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, March 16th, 2002
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Can you say a funeral was "perfect"? How about "beautiful"? Because that's what it was! Everyone involved pulled everything off beatifuly, all practical problems were just solved, everything worked. The music, the atmosphere, the colors, hell - even the eulogy I managed to give was just beautiful. I'm sure Eden would have found something wrong with it, but as far as I know the only thing missing was just that - him. And then small touches, like people putting their communicators down instead of flowers, a small military salute... wow, and I was thinking of not attending...
I'd like to thank everyone who turned up! I was afraid not many would, but I was wrong. A special thanx to everyone in uniforms, I know Eden would've loved that. Credits go off to Ricki for keeping the entire thing together, Nic for musical recomendations, Eva for emotional support, Paramount for letting us use the copyrighted Starfleet logo, my father for letting me have the car and thereby solving so many practical problems..
It was really nice to feel the support everyone offered through this tragedy.
Well, let's keep on Trekkin people!
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| The eulogy |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, March 17th, 2002
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My eulogy to Eden
I'd like to take a minute to explain to everyone a little about Star Trek and what it meant to Eden.
Star Trek, and Trekkies, are usually considered very techie, asocial and geeky. And although that description may fit Trekkies like myself, it didn't fit Eden. Eden was more into the human and social part of Star Trek and the always present "message" of the show. During it's 600+ episodes, Star Trek has dealt with basically every human and social problem there is - everything from politics, racism to sexuality. And they've not been preaching what is right and wrong, but instead let it up to the audience to decide for themselves. Before I met Eden, this part of Star Trek had gone unnoticed by me. But he constantly came up with weird Star Trek influenced questions like "what is life", "define love", "what qualifies as intelligence"... Edens gift to me, Star Trek-wise, was to force me to think along those lines, and not just watch the show but actually use my intellect.
Eden really loved Star Trek, from when he cried like crazy if he didn't get a Spock action figure when he was a kid to just threeweeks ago when he was sitting in my couch talking about the latest Star Trek episode, he lived Star Trek. So when planning
this whole thing, it seemed fitting to do it as Star Trek inspired as possible. Because if I had to put a lifestyle or religion on him, it'd be Star Trek.
But there was one philosphy in Star Trek he couldn't live by - non-involvement.He loved to get involved, create a stir and to just take the opposite side of whatever you were talking about. He didn't do it to offend or tick anyone off - he just wanted people to think and use their minds, not give the standard or political correct answers. He hated people who just said what they were suppose to, so he argued to make them think for themselves. Although I considred this a good trait, it was often mistaken as something negative. The people who didn't knew him may have thought he was a bit arrogant, wise-guy, know-it-all nitpicker. He loved to point out other peoples wrongs and to brag how much he knew, so therefor it took a special kind of person to become friends with him. I'm sure all of his friends have some funny story how they became friends with Eden. Mine is that I was exactly like him - nitpicky and bragged how much I know. So I picked up the gauntlet to take his arguments and we spent hours trying to break eachother in "who knows most about the least important thing in the world". That might have ended in a verbal war between us, but instead we teamed up to become the dynamic duo of useless information.
That's how our friendship started. And when he got a job up here in Stockholm, but didn't have any place to live, he crashed at my place for about 6 months. And during that period of trials and tribulations we got to know each other so well and I look back on those 6 months as some of the best of my life.
When he did get his own place and moved out we had inevitably become great friends. And if there was something he excelled at,it was taking care of his friends. With him, you never had to call and ask for help - he'd call you and offer his help! He bent over backwards to help his friends, sometimes at his own expense.
So there is no doubt in my mind that I'm a better and happier person today thanks to him, and it's with a smile on my face that I think about him and the time I got to spend with him, the incredible original that he was. And noone can ever forget him because he made an impression on everyone he met or talked to. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good, but he always made a lasting impression.
The most pleasing thought I'd heard during the past weeks when asking "what is he doing now" is '" he's probably sitting up there in heaven [or whatever you believe in] sharing a cold one with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry ". That thought always brings a smile to my face.
And I'd like to close this with something I end all my mails with - a quote. This one from Star Trek II, said my Dr. McCoy:
"He's not really dead. As long as we remember him."
THANK YOU
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, March 18th, 2002
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That was my eulogy to my best friend Eden. Or rather how it was written, approved and memorized. Unfortunately I tense up when speaking in front of a crowd. Add to that a very near outburst of tears and I'm bound to miss a few things here and there. But I'm pretty sure everyone agrees that it wasn't what I said, it was the fact that I got up to say something.
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| Pictures from the funeral |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, March 19th, 2002
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Here are some pictures from the most beautiful, but also the worst, funeral I've ever been too:
Pic # 1 : Picture with everything in it. (including my stereo :( )
Pic # 2 : Picture with everything in it. (including Eva :) )
Pic # 3 : Close up of two of the most frequent Eden attires - his hat and custom made jacket.
Pic # 4 : Close up of a "Galaxy-class" model. That was his alias on the web, Galaxy-class
Pic # 5 : Close up of the Spock action figure I mentioned in the eulogy.
Pic # 6 : Picture from the side.
Pic # 7 : Picture from the reversed side post-service.
Pic # 8 : I don't know if this is something pilots do every day over this cemetary (the biggest one I've ever seen) or if it was specially ordered today, but it was a nice touch.
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| New design |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, March 21st, 2002
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I've finally got some motivation and inspiration (translate - "Kris found a good, nice and easily adaptable design that he's gonna steal") to start on a new design for the pretty low-key'd site. Also working on a little memorial for my friend. Hey, we all deal with this our way!
Just got my web-statistics report. I've had about 500 people checking in on this page daily since February 25th. Thanx everyone!
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| What was I thinking? |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, March 22nd, 2002
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So, did anyone of you wonder why on earth I was actually thinking about not going to my best friend's funeral?
When I was thinking about it, I asked myself "why should I?". And the first answer I came up with is "because you're just suppose to!". And that's so true, you're just suppose to go, it's what you do! If you don't show up, people will think you're a self-centered asshole. But is that reason enough? I really don't want people to think I'm an asshole. But compare that to all the planning, work and emotional control it required to going... there's gotta be something else!
How about "so you can say a final goodbye"? NO! I'm not there yet. I'm still in a little bit of denial. And when I get there, shouldn't I be able to say goodbye to him in my way, in the way I think is appropriate. So that's not it..
How about "to support everyone else"? Fair enough, but that didn't happen since every ounce of conscious thought went into trying not to burst out in tears myself, so I wasn't able to support anyone else. Which, in retrospect, I really should have.
The only valid reason I came up with was "to show everyone what a good friend of his you were". So good that I'll go through all of this, so good that I could actually give a little eulogy.And no, I'm not applauding myself here, it's just that I'm wondering what the real purpose is, why does everyone else go through this?
On a happier note, the new design is absolutely beautiful, some of my best work. Will be up this weekend.
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| More Spears bashing |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, March 22nd, 2002
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How do you like the new design? Pretty cool, huh? I'm still sorting out bugs for different resolutions and stuff like that, but everything looks perfect from my side so sorry, not a top priority.
And I have a new favorite musicvideo - Manson's cover of "Tainted Love" :) Great looking women, nice track and his style is so out of here, but he somehow manages to look cool anyway, how does he do it? Have you seen the MTV Diary featuring Manson? I might not like his style that much, or his music (except for this song ofcourse), but he's got his style and he sticks with it and tells the people with the ties to shut up if they try to change it. Kinda total opposite of Spears that way :)
(I'm sorry, that Spears-bashing must be getting old now, but I just can't help it, I mean listen to that crappy "not a girl, not yet a woman", wtf does that mean? She'll always be a girl, unless she has some operation... and a girl over 20 is a woman, right? So wtf does that song mean? Is she immature, like me? Then just say it - I'm incredibly childish and proud of it!... time for ice-cream!)
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| Pay day again |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, March 25th, 2002
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Payday again in sweden. You know what that means, right? It's been exactly one month since my best friend died :( On an egoistic note - I think this has ruined any joy I may ever have on any future payday...
On an optimistic note however - I got a real life example which proves I'm not a racists: I woke up this morning to the radio-chatter, and the news that Hale Berry had won an Oscar. "Good for her" I thought, "she's done some really good performances over the years, so she's worked for it". Then 7 o´clock news started and one of the short headlines was "a historic win in best actress category at the Oscars". "Why is Hale Berry winning historic?"... The youngest? No, Anna Paquin is the youngest one I'm aware of... no, it was historic because she was the first afro-american actress to get it. I didn't even think about that! To me, that wasn't even an issue! True, it sounds very much like the "South Park" episode when they had that huge debate over the flag that showed a bunch of white people hanging a black person. But all the kids saw was an bunch of people hanging someone. So once again, I'm reassured I'm not a racist, and I'll let everyone else think what they want about me.
Btw, this means that X-Men now have two Oscar award winning chicks :) (of course, both Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen deserves one each, they're both awesome actors!)
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| Busy! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, March 27th, 2002
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Ok, I know this site doesn't look good in anything else than MS Internet Explorer! That's because I was a bit too eager to get it up. I'm redoing the entire site using only tables instead of layers and frames. Then it'll look cool in NS and Mozilla! I'm also gonna update the "Eden Memorial" alot over the next few days. But I just got the new Star Wars game, Jedi Knight II, so I'll be a bit busy with that for a while. Also, it's easter time which means back to my parents for the looong weekend and the F1 race from Brasil. I'll update again asap.
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| Porn! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, March 29th, 2002
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Do you know what I think is way underestimated? Humor and comedy in the porno industry! I was flipping through channels yesterday and wound up on channel "Canal + Yellow" where they were showing the porno version of Matrix, called "Trixxx". That's humor right there, their titles! "Old McDonald Shags His Farm", "Austin Prowler", "Analyze These" and the best one - "Saving Ryan's Privates". Some of the... "actors" names are equaly hilarious, "Michael J. Cox!" :) Then of course there's the dialogue and story. And if you're still not laughing, look at one in fast-forward and tell me it's not funny! (and don't go all high and mighty on me saying you've never seen one!)
Anyway, off to my parent's again for the easter weekend. Great food, great company and an F1 race. Have a great weekend everyone!
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| No April 1 update! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, April 2nd, 2002
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Again - I didn't update yesterday because I didn't want an updateto be confused with April fools. Let's face it - sometimes my lifecan come off as a bad joke! Btw, what is a good April fools joke?Is it a joke that's hilarious, funny but totally obvious that it'san April fools (like TFN's conversion from Star Wars to N'Sync!),or is it something that's very nicely disguised and could actuallybe real (like that time 4 years ago when the internet went down onApril 1st and someone started a chain letter explaining that the US government had pulled the plug)? Or is it something in between,like NataliePortman.com's faked interview that wasn't totally outthere but too funny to actually have happened? I think it's onevery well disguised, but that doesn't mean I wasn't laughing atTFN's N'Sync site :)
I did an update last week about my communicator. But it was lost when I uploaded the new pages. I'll post it again tomorrow.
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| Lost another friend? |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, April 3rd, 2002
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Seems I've lost another friend, but not in the dramatic way I lostEden. My "brother" Jocke (I grew up without a brother, so he's"the brother I never had") mistook creative criticism for something else. The story is that for the past months I've peaked him about how lazy he is. Not lazy in a "don't even wanna get out of bed"-way like me, but lazy as in "why bother learning new stuff when I can get someone else to do it". Latest example would be Warcraft III. I got a cracked, ripped and beaten up hacker version that took some work to get working. He got the same stuff I had but he couldn't be bothered setting it up himself, so he asked me to fix it for him. On a short term basis that principal works, getting someone else who's already done it to do it for you is quicker and less painful. But what do you get out of it? You're not any wiser or anything. So I've tried peaking him about the principal of Do It Yourself.
If there's one thing I got going for me professional-wise it's my creativity and resourcefulness - if I hit a brick wall I do everything I can, time permitting, to solve it myself. During all the times I've had to solve problems I've learnt something new, maybe not relevant to that specific problem, but I always learn something. So I think it's a really good thing to try and fix and solve problems yourself. But sometimes I do take a shortcut and ask someone if I'm not in the mood for surfing the web for problems I don't really want to have. So after trying to tell him this he basically told me to fuck off. Should I have been a bit more tolerant when he asked me again to download new Mutant-X episodes for him, while looking for 13 Ghosts DVD-RIP for him and in the meantime playing Warcraft III (which I don't even like) with him after I had driven over 80 km just to give him a ride beause he couldn't be bothered to take the bus. Maybe.... (incidentally - this happened less than 5 days after I got his own ADSL internet connection working)
Anyway, bought myself a new DVD player yesterday, a Pioneer DVD-545. So now I can squeeze 4.7 GB (80 hours!) of MP3 onto a DVD-RW and let it rip. But somehow it didn't make me feel the least bit better under the circumstances.
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| In his defence |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, April 4th, 2002
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Jocke wanted me to post this:
"Kanske borde skriva på ding sida att du BAd mig fiksa skärm och komma till dig. Det gjorde jag. Jag bad dig fiksa konto på hans ftp inte fiksa mutant x. Sen bad jag bara om hans email och den fick jag men då tjatade du om att du måste fiksa allt. Jag kan ju inte direkt gissa hans email eller ? Filmen 13 ghost var 1 månad innan jag fick mitt adsl som jag bad dig tanka den filmen."
Should I translate it for you? No. Two reasons : 1) His spelling is so fucked up I wouldn't know how. And b) Why should I translate his defence? Another thing to add to the "lists of stuff he is too lazy to do himself".
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| Being sued again |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, April 6th, 2002
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Today I got an e-mail that made me smile. It was yet another "take those pictures off NP.Com or we'll sue"-letter :) We put up the latest scans from the "Entertainment Weekly" magazine and it took a whole day for their PR Manager, Jason Averett, to mail us asking us to take them down. The thing that made me smile was how incredibly nice and polite he was about it! I've gotten used to these types of letters, and if I was running a magazine and had a site like us publishing everything, I'd be mad too! But this guy was just nice. That was fun :) So now I like E. Weekly even more than I use to. (I used to like them alot because they have great cover-pictures)
So, guess what I saw in the TV scedule the other day? You won't believe this... PART II of the porno version of Trixx! Isn't that just hilarious! :) I didn't bother seeing it, I just thought it was funny that they had a part II :)
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| Catching up on movies |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, April 8th, 2002
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I guess I managed to get the flu or something because all weekend I've felt like shit and spent most of it tucked down in my sofa watching old movies with my new DVD player. And I'm pretty grateful for it, because there's been a while since I've had a weekend without any plans what so ever. And we all need those, right?
Anyway, one of the movies I saw again for the 15th time was "The Matrix". There's one thing that always bothered my about that movie - the window cleaners. The plot-reason for them being there is to motivate the existence of a scaffold outside. But why did they go to so much trouble showing the cleaners, and most of all, in the 5.1 digital mix they could very well be heard in the rear channel. I never quite got what was so important about them. Until this time around when I realised it was the directors, the Wachowski-brothers. Live and learn...
I also saw a movie that may very well make my top 5 of "best movies ever" - Groundhog Day. You know the one with Bill Murray who wakes up to the same day over and over. I still think that movie is hilarious and has some magic in it I just can't put into words. It's a totally weird premise, and there's no real answer given, but it's still a great movie. And whatever did happen to Bill Murray, he was a huge star in the 80's, but what happened to him later? The most recent movie I've seen with him was "Charlie's Angels".
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| No more!! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, April 10th, 2002
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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! STOP IT !!!! GIVE ME A BREAKE !!!! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE !!! I'M GOING BANANASSSSSS !!!!!!! AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY!!!!!!!!!
I'll tell you what's PISSING ME OFF RIGHT NOW! - REALITY TV, or docu-soaps. I HATE THEM!! CAN'T FREAKING STAND THEM ANYMORE !
I began watching the first reality shows, back in -91 with MTV's "Real Life - New York", then LA, then S.F., after that it felt old. Then swedish TV started with their "Survivor" that was later exported. Then Villa Medusa here in sweden. So far OK. Then it all went to hell. You can't turn on the TV here anymore without either seing some docu-soap or some trailer for it. Big Brother, Temptation Island, The Farm, Popstars, the Bar, Wannabe and all that crap, I CAN'T TAKE IT anymore! They are so totally crappy!!
I mean - have we, as a society, gone so down the drain we actually have to expose fame-seeking people to artificially created environements and show it in prime-time? Seriously, if I hear one more confession from some corky Big Brother-girl, some horny guy from Temptation Island or read about how terrible it was doing the show in the paper... I don't know what I'm gonna do! Seriously, it's gone so far that I actually feel physically ill and get an uncontrollable attack whenever I accidentally flip in the middle of either of these. Think it could be classified as torture by now, it's even worse than flipping over in the middle of a Spears-video.
(still looking for the answer to "what tha hell is a female who's not a girl, but not a woman"!)
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| Losing my job? |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, April 11th, 2002
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I'm having one of those days you just wish you never got out of bed. First thing I saw in my mailbox this morning was a mail from the CEO calling for an emergency staff-meeting today. "Oh oh, I guess we're talking cut-backs now, hopefully not staff-cutbacks!". Then I get out to my assignment of the day and my boss calls me up and tells me to skip lunch and take a cab to the office because he needs to "talk to me". What could be so important that I actually need to get there A.S.A.P? Does he wanna congratulate me for being such a good little worker-ant? Does he wanna mention that I'm # 7 on our "who brings in most money"-list? Or does he wanna tell me "here's your severance pay, good luck with your life"?
I think I can take being unemployed, atleast for a month or two, but longer than that and I'll have financial problems. But that's not the worst part. Had he said on the phone "you're out of a job", that'd be one thing, I can start thinking "what now?". But not knowing is the worst thing! Being in this kinda limbo-state, I hate that! Still, can't blame him, firing somebody has to be one of the worst things for a boss so I guess I will appreciate that he did it person-to-person instead of over the phone. So for the next few hours, hold your breath for me when I find out what my future looks like....
UPDATE: Ok, you can exhale now. It seems I get to keep my job, for the time being anyway. We'll see how it goes during the next 6 months, if things don't look better then, who knows. What saved my ass was a clause that said our employment would be transfered, not discontinued and renewed when we merged the two companies last year. So my employment date of "April -96" saved me, so I get to work here for a while longer.
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| History in movies |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, April 14th, 2002
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I just saw three movies this weekend based on historical events - "Braveheart", "Apollo 13" and "U-571". After all of those I realised what an incredible responsibility everyone who tries to do a historical drama has! Not only to do an entertaining movie, make some profit for the production company but also to enlighten the audience about an event they probably don't know that much about.
And these three movies took their own routes to that. Story-wise "Braveheart" wins! Great drama, great battles, and a great ending. But it's so full of historical errors it should have a disclaimer in the end that "some of this didn't actually happen". And that's exactly what we got in the end of "U-571", a disclaimer. But "Apollo 13" went all the way to try to be as truthful as possible. And in my opinion, "Apollo 13" was the best of them all, hands-down! Absolutely the best sound too :)
So think about that the next time you see a historical movie - they do take some libirties for dramatical purposes. So don't sit there and think William Wallace actually nailed Isabelle, she was about 5 years old at the time...
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| Resident Evil |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, April 16th, 2002
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I saw another movie the other day, "Resident Evil". I'm not that big of a fan of the video games, so I wasn't expecting much at all. And while watching it I realized something disturbing - I've seen so many movies I can't watch one without thinking "where did they steal that from?". This movie was a combo of "Cube", "2001", "Aliens" and "Night of the Living Dead". The first three are great movies, but it was that "zombie"-thing I had a problem with. I still laugh when I see 30 zombies walking around trying to kill a main character. But other than that, a good way to waste 2 hours.
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| Cell phones! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, April 19th, 2002
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A debate that's been going on here in sweden (and in our company!) recently has been about the use of cellular phones. The debate has mostly been about corporate financed phones, and how they should be taxed since almost everyone uses it for private things as well. That's not what's bothering me. What's bothering me is how annoying people can be when they are talking in their cell-phone. Not to the person they're talking to, but to everyone else around! I use my cell-phone for "I'll be there in 5 minutes"-calls. I rarely talk in it for more than 1 minute. But when people are sitting on the train, in a restaurant or something and they start talking in their cell phone and keep talking for 10-15 minutes, as if it was a regular phone call I get annoyed. And they also raise their VOICE WHEN THERE'S A BAD RECEPTION!, I hate that. And it's impossible to try and filter them out, you inevitably wind up listening to the (usually idiodic) conversation.
So please people, save those conversations for when you're in a more private environment, 'cause the rest of us don't wanna hear your shoppinglists!!
Btw, if anyone tries calling me in the next few days, I'll probably not answer. I got the Star Trek - Next Generation first season DVD box, 25 episodes to watch and an entire weekend to do it in. Now if I could just get a little pink poodle on a keychain, everything would be perfect.
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| Linda Blair |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, April 24th, 2002
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Do you remember my collection of signed pics of beautiful women I got toregret having back in New Years? Well, my truly amazing american buddy Billhas given me another one to add to the collection. A signed pic of Linda Blair. Made out to "Kristoffer" - especially for me :)
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| I hate computers! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, April 25th, 2002
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Sometimes I really hate computers! Usually I shrug it off by saying "if computers didn't screw up as much, I'd be unemployed". But yesterday I was faced with some of the biggest messes I've ever gotten myself into. It involved two NT servers, one Netware 4 server, two virus softwares, four hugely infected computers and a very screwed up network. Took my 7 hours to sort out, but it's the small things that just made me pissed (and by small I mean Microsoft). Fortunately it's solved, but I'm still getting a headache even thinking about it!
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| Got a car |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, April 26th, 2002
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"Woke up this morning, and I got myself a car". I'm afraid I had to take another little step towards being an... adult. I bought a car. A very well used one that I'll breake in a couple of years, but I really needed it for my work! Although I did take great pride in being able to get myself anywhere at any time using local transportation, it didn't work in the long run. And I probably won't be able to afford actually owning it. We'll see...
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| Sweet weekend |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, April 29th, 2002
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So that was another great weekend over and done with! Decent weather, great F1 race, new car to drive everywhere and just all over nice to visit my parents again. Do I need to say my mother's cooking rocks? (I thought it went without saying, but she thought I'd atleast mention it so I did)
But about the F1 race this weekend (Spain), I'm a bit undecided if I like Ferrari's dominance or not? I'm a Ferrari fan so ofcourse I love it when they win, but seriously, Schumi dominated it so much (same with Imola) that it just wasn't as fun watching as it used to be. Hope the other teams can do something to make it a little more exciting.
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| Six packs? |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, May 2nd, 2002
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So I was invited to my friends place for a little BBQ and a small gettogether with some other friends of his. One of which was a single girl that he had tried to play match-maker for, and apparently one of her first questions about me had been "does he have a 6 pack?", a question that made us both laugh considering the only 6 pack I've ever had has been limited to the fridge! I don't know how serious she was about that but it kinda made me wonder about how much, or little, emphasis girls place in how guys look. I may be able to work up a 6 pack in say a year or so (if I give up the little life outside work I have and spend every free minute in the gym, maybe even require steroids), but it wouldn't be me! I enjoy the good things in life (and eating is pretty high up on that list) too much to try and get one, not to mention try to keep it!
When it comes to this I also have a pretty good rule - don't expect anything of anyone that you can't deliver yourself.
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| Dressing up |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, May 4th, 2002
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Wanna hear something amazing? You're gonna ! My friend is getting married this summer (that's not the amazing part!). And on the invitation they specifically said "suit". If you don't know me well enough - I NEVER wear a suit. It just isn't me. I can count the number of times I've had a suit (and had an influence in what I wear!) on one hand. But hell, it is his wedding so why not. And just to make sure my almost 6 year old suit doesn't fit I tried it on the other day. And guess what? Yep, it still fits! How unbelievable is that! I'm the least healthy, sporting, active guy in the world, that combined with my food habits and I shouldn't fit into something I bought 6 years ago! Then I got to thinking "how cheap is it to use a 6 year old suit", and I'm torn. It's in perfect condition so there's really no need to buy a new one...
Btw, got a great new porno-title for you - "Titney Spheres". ROTFL! (and believe me, I'm not making that up!)
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| Letting it ring |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, May 7th, 2002
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Is it OK or irresponsible not to answer your phone? I asked myself that question yesterday. Yesterday I had bought a new CD player, a toy for my car, a new 80 Gig harddrive and a new 19" monitor and I was totally busy playing around with everything when my phone rings. And I just say to my self "nah, let it ring". Is it OK to do that, or is it considered rude not to answer your phone? I don't have any number display or anything so I have no idea who's calling, so it's not personal. It's just that sometimes I feel like not answering.
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| Girls growing up |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, May 8th, 2002
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So I just saw "Spiderman"... I can summon that movie up in one word - ripoff! This movie steals stuff from Grease to Star Wars. But it's stylish. And when Spiderman saved his damsel in distress I got one more "signs you're getting old!" - "when those little girls you saw in movies a while back starts playing the babe in today's movies".
Let me ellaborate : The two most talked-about movies right now is "Spiderman" and "Star Wars Episode II". The first ones has a babe who needs to be saved by her hero. That babe is played by Kirsten Dunst. "Star Wars Episode II" also has a babe who needs to be saved by her hero. That girl is played by Natalie Portman.
FLASHBACK back to 1994, Kirsten Dunst won an MTV award for her part in "Interview with a Vampire" and Natalie was just awesome in "Léon". So having seen these girls grow up through their movies and now all of a sudden their playing the babes? DUDE, I was seriously checking out Kirsten Dunst's contribution to the "Best Wet T-shirt"-contest when this thought hit me. Not a pleasent one...
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| Star Wars Episode II |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, May 12th, 2002
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I've finally seen Star Wars Ep. II, and here are my thoughts:
(this may contain small spoilers, but I think everything in here has already been spoiled)
So I finally "saw" it. I couldn't wait till thursday so I had to see the "internet" version of it. Pretty crappy sound and picture, but still good enough to form an opinion.
Already from the first scene with Natalie you can clearly see that Amidala has matured alot since her "I don't approve"-pouting in TPM, although she does fall back to that childish behaviour once or twice (like the infamous rolling-in-the-grass scene). Other than that, Natalie does what she's suppose to, but doesn't excel. The only time she exerts any emotion is in her speech, borderlining whispers, just before the arena scene.
Anakin is just so easy do dislike right up, except for a line or two he's just in the way! If that was intended or not... I don't know.
The chemistry between Obi Wan and Anakin is a bit better than the one between Qui Gonn and Obi Wan but still falls short of being credible as a Master - Apprentice one, and the first scene between them and Amidala is just... so scripted. Even their first argument is lacking of emotions, just people reading off a script. But I do like the fact that Anakin uses a word like "overkill" :)
The surprising highlight of this movie is Jango and Boba Fett, they rock, just downright mean! Then Sam Jackson who makes his best entrance in a while.
The CGI - Yoda is more or less totally CGI and it's frightingly obvious. Even if you disregard the fact that real actors eyes aren't actually on the character, you can clearly see Yoda is CGI. Not to mention the sequence when Anakin is riding some animal, soooo badly animated. But while they were pretty bad at animating living things, they were pretty darn good doing the space-chasing scene, that was just visually stunnning (even in this version!). And the surface battles and the end was pretty awesome, much better than in TPM which was pathetic by comparison. And speaking of fights - the lightsaber fight in this one may not be up to TPM standard, but you can sense alot more emotions and motivations in it than the one in TPM. (and I think the CGI animators at ILM have been playing a bit too much Diablo II with "Whirlwind" ability...)
The script... Although it is suffering from the kind of fast-paced scripting as TPM did (cutting from scene to scene without any closure anywhere), it works a little better considering it is following what's happening in three places at once. And the humor is back, atleast a little. Even I couldn't help but to laugh at Anakins reply to Obi Wan's "What took you so long?". But then there are those just very stupid comments like "in that case, be _extra_ careful" when they're chasing an assassin and "Jedi-business, go back to your drinks" to name but a few. And there are some typical US things in here as well - like the american football game on the bigscreen TV, and Amidala only being allowed to serve two terms because the constitution says so, those kinda things bothered me - a non-US citizen.
Then there are a few nice ironic scenes, like when Anakin is introduced to Owen and Beru Lars! But there are also small things that doesn't make sense. For example, Jar Jar says he hasn't seen Padme this happy for a long time, and this is suppose to be just after the first assassination attempt which kills her double? And Amidala telling the soldier they got to get to that hangar, but she was knocked out and unconscious so what did she know about a hangar...
The love story... it didn't quite convince me actually. Everything seemed wrong, but then there was that scene just before the arena fight that made it seem good, but oh no, they ruined it in the actual arena scene with Amidala giving him a little kiss, that took it down a few notches.
All in all - a BIG step forward compared to Ep. I, but not the "WOW!" experience I was hoping for. I'll give it a "@@@@" out of five.
On a little side note : Have you seen "Galaxy's Quest"? one of my favorite scenes in that movie is when Tim and Sigourney are running throught the ship and encounter the "choppers", big metal crushers that serves no purpose, and Sigourney freaks out - "there's no logical reason for them to be here! This episode was badly written". Well there is a scene in Episode II that's exactly like that, just without the sarcasm.
And in case you're wondering, I don't have a bad conscious about seeing the pirate version, I already have my tickets for thursday's premiere... perhaps I'll get the "wow" experience then...
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| Summer in the city |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, May 15th, 2002
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So summer is here. With a bang! You know what that means, right? Sleepless nights for Kris (don't know why I have a problem sleeping when it's warm, I just do), but more importantly, the women are dressing less. I work in the central part of Stockholm this week so I decided to take a stroll around the blocks the other day (I was actually on a mission, more on that in another update) and lets just say I'm glad I wasn't driving! Some say people who are overly checking out women are insecure about their sexuality... well, I'm not and it's good to get a confirmation about that a little now and then, considering it's been... shit, almost six months...
SW Ep. II premieres tomorrow (at midnight actually, 00:01), but I've already seen it but just have to go anyway. If not to compensate for the fact I saw the pirate version off the internet, then for the huge bangs duing the asteroid hunt sequence! I'll be going to the 18.20 showing on thursday at FS Sergel, so if you're there, please say "hi" :)
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| Driving Mr Strom |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, May 16th, 2002
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So how many reacted to me saying it's been six months? That's right, I got to counting, it's only been five months! Stupid me :)
Anyways, so I've really gotten used to driving now. I think it's kinda fun, even sitting in queues in to Stockholm. But there are three huge drawbacks to driving compared to commuting. 1) Money! It's so expensive driving here, most of all because of the gas! 2) I've eliminated the little exercise I used to get, which was walking to the trainstation! c) I hate to sound repetitive, but there's not that many women to sit and admire. Sure, there's a couple of them but that's when you're reminded that "HEY, you're DRIVING!". (I'm purposly avoiding mentioning anything that happened in the F1 race in Austria)
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| Religion |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, May 21st, 2002
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I'm one of those people who doesn't care much for religion. I'm an agnostic. And the other day I found out why I don't like religion: I got into a discussion with a guy from Israel about Natalie Portman's religion. My first response was very nasty, almost rude. I realised that before sending it, so I deleted it and waited a few days to write a new reply to him, this one based on facts. But it worries me that I, a person who doesn't care that much about it, got upset and almost lost my manners when talking about it.
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| Cars! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, May 23rd, 2002
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Cars - they are a very stupid invention! The only good thing about cars, as I see it, is that they give alot of people alot of work! Come on, think about it; think about the raw materials required to build one. Think of the actual construction and all waste it produces. Then the fuel, oil-rigs aren't environment friendly either, and then the gases produced by the motors and all that that does to the greenhouse effect. Then think about all people & other living things killed or injured by cars every year. Don't forget all the space and wonderful nature we'd have if it wasn't for all the roads (the construction of roads isn't environment friendly either!). And then when it has outlived its usefulness, it's dumped to just corrode away. So why are we using cars so much? Same with smoking - people know it's bad for them, they know their lungs are taking damage, they know their stinking up the place, themselves and their clothes. Still they do it.
People really are stupid.
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| Eurovision Song Contest |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, May 26th, 2002
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Do you know what Eurovisian Song Contest is? If you don't, here's the short point: Each country in Europe has a song contest, including a live performance, and the winner is sent as a representative for that country to the Euro-wide finals.
It's an annual TV event and tradition, and I grew up watching it. In recent years I've kinda missed it, but this year when I was flipping through the channels and didn't find anything else, I put it on the TV and went about other business. Until Greece's contributions came on, and I got one of my infamous laugh-attacks when I just can't stop laughing, it was so hilarious. And it never got better, other contributions was almost as bad, like the three guys dressed up as flight attendants! I don't think I've ever laughed as much to such a serious event! It's watched by atleast a billion people, and is Euro-wide, but I couldn't stop laughing! Unfortunately, politics comes into play at this event, but I mean, who didn't expect Cyprus to give max points to Greece and Greece to give max points to Cyprus!
The real pathetic part was the bimbo calling from the Israel capital of Jerusalem... like, hello?!
And once more I've proven I'm more reliable than the experts! Sweden was a favorite, ranked very high at the bookmakers and some even expected them to win. They ended up fighting to even stay in the contest for next year! (as you may know, there are more than 22 countries in Europe, so you have to meassure up to be able to compete in the next one!)
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| DVD imports |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, May 29th, 2002
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Let's talk about an ever increasing problem in our society - DVD IMPORTS! The production and distribution studios like DVDs. The format gives them one more chance to make money on old movies and another format to distribute new movies. They also like that they now have some place to store all those documentaries that are made during production of a movie. A DVD disc today costs around $20, so that's more than twice what it costs to see a movie in the cinema. So you'd think that they would like everyone to buy DVD's everywhere?... yea, you'd think!
To prevent a movie from being available on DVD before it's available in the cinema (which sometimes is the case here in sweden, I bought "Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back" 3 months before the swedish premiere!), they have decided to region code DVD's. When I started buying DVD's there weren't that many places to buy from. DVDExpress was one of the first Internet ordering places, but the shipment cost was pretty high. Then I found a DVD supplier here in sweden selling imported region ones (i.e american) at a pretty cheap price so I stuck to that place for two years. Then the distribution studios in sweden decided to get "tough on imports" and started suing places that sold imported DVD's. So I had to switch. That's when I found Play247, an internet business selling region ones over the internet, free of shipping and delivery within a week. Not ideal, but great. Until last week when all of a sudden, the swedish customs wanted $20 extra, PER DISC! Just $5 of that went to the actual customs, the rest was just tax, shipment and all other kinds of stuff you can only charge people in sweden for since we never say no.
So what now? I'm gonna try with this Canadian place called DVD Box office, that place sounds good although they can sometimes take up to 2 weeks to deliver them. But if I can just get rid of this customs-charge I'd be pretty happy.
They could all solve this problem with region coding easily - have premieres at the same time worldwide, like Star Wars Episode II! It doesn't make sense for a movie to get here 6 months after the states, it's just rediculous!
Anyway's, I've started playing around with PHP so I might convert this entire thing into a database or something...
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| Hangovers! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, June 3rd, 2002
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So yesterday was my birthday. And I didn't really enjoy it because I found another "signs that you're getting old" - hangovers! They're getting worse and worse! I remember when hangovers only last a couple of hours and took a gallon of water to cure. No more, I was feeling terrible all day yesterday. Which wasn't nice since we had a nice bbq planned with my family and stuff, I wasn't too... happy :( But always look on the bright side - saturday evening was hilarious.
And do you remember that radio-chick I was talking about a year back? The babe that disappeared to finland but returned out of the blue on the radio the day before the most sacred days for me - Christmas? That was a nice surprise, but guess who was in charge of the night shift on the radio yesterday when I went to bed? Coinsidence that she comes on the radio on the two most important days for me? Hehehe :)
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| Wasn't meant to be |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, June 5th, 2002
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So it turns out it was coincidence after all, cause she's getting married in the near future. Good for her! And I really mean that. And as far as the guy goes... I can't tell you how many sunday mornings that guy has been responsible for waking me up :)
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| Take a chance! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, June 10th, 2002
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Did you see the MTV Movie Awards? Natalie was presenting an award so more or less had to see it. This is one of the few award shows I still have a little bit of respect for! Anyway, Seann William Scott won an award (for best kiss with Jason Biggs... don't ask!), and in his acceptance speech he said something like "five years ago, I was working in a zoo, now look at me!".
And that got me thinking - just how much in life is left to chance. Everything from having the good parents, the right genetic makeup/DNA, sibblings, teachers in school, job oppurtunities, meeting the right one and to not be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Just how much of that can you actually control yourself? Not a lot....
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| KLF |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, June 13th, 2002
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So yesterday I re-discovered what may very well have been the best musical duo ever - Bill Drummond and Jimi Cauty, aka "Kopyright Liberation Front". Most known as the KLF, or JAMS. Actually they have alot of aka's. Back in the early 90's they were extremely popular and I loved them, but the other day I heard "3 am Eternal" again and it's still damn good. So I downloaded all the good old songs (love it when Whitney Houston joins the JAMS!). They pretty much invented illegal sampling/ripping :)
Their music is still pretty awesome, very creative videos as well, and the only thing I have against them is the fact that they don't make any new music and haven't since May 5th '92 and won't release any more "until peace reigned around the world". Great goal ofcourse, but they made too good music just to quit like that :(
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| Eminem |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, June 17th, 2002
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Eminem is also one of those artists who's music I don't like and who's opinions I don't agree with, but still have respect for because how he's doing his thing no matter what anybody says. He also shares my dislike for the product named Britney Spears.
But then he goes and gay-bashed MOBY!?
Moby, you can get stomped by Obie, you 36 year old bald headed fag, blow me.
You don't know me, you're too old, let go, its over, nobody listens to techno.
I don't know for a fact Moby isn't gay (although he did make out with Natalie Portman so I guess not). And Moby makes great music and preaches "peace, love and understanding" (he kinda proved that with his response in own journal) so what's Eminem's problem?
So now I don't like his music, his opinions or him.
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| Old aquiantances |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, June 19th, 2002
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Last saturday we had a little party here at my parents house. They're away for a week and I'm in charge, so naturally there'll be a party! Anyway, it was going to be a normal BBQ with the usual crew (AC, her hubby Paul and my "brother" Jocke) but on this special occasion, two women I've known since I was five came - Lina and Helena. Lina I've seen and talked to a little now and then, but Helena have been living a little all over so I haven't really talked to her for over 10 years (not counting the occasional "hello"s). And it was good catching up a little with her.
See, I live my life after my own set of "Rules of Conduct" to ensure that if I'd die, noone will have anything bad to say about me. And I can count the people who may have something bad to say about me on one hand. And now there is one less! Because the last time we "talked" it was during my teens when I had done some really stupid things, so I've always felt that when we lost contact it was on a bad note. But now I think I'm redeemed.
And on a very, very happy note - Helena's boyfriend (yeap, all good ones are still taken) name is Timothy, but called Tim or... TIMMYYYY!... and I started laughing when I heard her say that and I had to explain that I'm a South Park-fan and that's why TIMMYYY is pretty funny, and guess what she counters with? She was one of the dancers performing the "BLAME CANADA!" (theme from "South Park The Movie") number during the 2000 Oscars! DUDE!
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| Keeping myself busy |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, June 24th, 2002
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You must be thinking "you are one lazy dude, only updating twice during a 8 day vacation!". Not true! I don't think I've ever had so much to do during a vacation as I did last week! The time just flew past me like Marilyn Manson from a Britney Spears concert! And every little minute of free time I could find went into studying for my Novell 5.1 Administration certification exam I had this morning. So I hardly feel relaxed and re-energized after this vacation. But I only have myself to blame I guess.
And speaking of Britney Spears - I heard she "loves rock'n'roll". Then why is she in the pop-genre? The difference is huge, and I don't think she'd cut it in rock'n'roll. Although that song may be one of her best ones. Too bad it's a cover.
Oh yeah, I passed that test by the way. So what does that mean? It means that I have a paper that says "this guy passed a test so he should kinda know Novell Netware 5.1". I don't know any more, or less, about Novell than I did two weeks ago though.
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| Parking problems |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, June 26th, 2002
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Do you know what we've never seen? James Bond having problems parking his car or getting a ticket! Seriously, I was driving out to a customer to install an internet router, and my biggest worry was where to park the car. That's when it hit me that we've never seen James Bond have that kind of trouble. I've never seen him pay for parking or anything! And that proves just how much I think about the little practical things that become big problems if I hadn't been one step ahead.
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| I love rock'n'roll |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, June 27th, 2002
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Ok, everybody grab onto something because what I'm about to admit will send shockwaves all over the world : I saw the video to the Spears cover of "I Love Rock and Roll". And liked it. Seriously, the video was OK. Although it was zooming in on her belly abit much, it was still a step in the right direction! And she definitely knew how to mount that bike :) The song I still have a problem with though. They've toned down the volume to the music too much. In the original you could feel the drumbeats and feel the guitar ripping away. But in this you can barely hear it. So music-wise I still prefer the original, but video-wise the new is better. Which is the point I've been making all along - music is getting worse and worse because they are going further and further away from making good music to putting on a good show.
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| Minority Report |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, June 29th, 2002
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I'm writing this at 2:10 am on Saturday morning. I just got home from a preview screening of "Minority Report". I'm not that big a fan of Spielbergs. He is too much up and down, great movies like "Schindler's List" and then rock bottom movies like "Hook". Same goes for Tom Crooze. And I had read a couple of reviews, most critics didn't like. But what do they know - it rocked! One of Spielbergs greatest movies, right up there with "E.T" and "Schindler's List". It made one think in so many levels, and a future society I'm not sure I'd be willing to be apart of. And of course, our swedish actor Peter Stormare who actually got to speak swedish and his assistant sang the swedish folk song about the small frogs - unbelievable! :)
One thing I liked was that Spielberg is going a little 'DePalma' with shooting sequences way more complicated than they need to be. Like the one whith the spiders crawling and you see everything from above in a cut-out sort of way - so inspired from "Snake Eyes", and really nicely done. But what was down right beautifully filmed was the scene when Tom hugs the girl in the lobby and he's facing one way and she the other while they have a conversation... that was just beautifully filmed and the lighting was excellent!!
You should definitely go and see it! Credit goes to swedish Fox for fixing the preview. And I usually don't like Fox for all the trouble they're giving us at NP.com!
Btw, if you're in Stockholm you should check out the sci-fi congress in Kulturhuset. I'm gonna be in the panel of experts for two sessions, one on Saturday at 13:00 ("100 Years of Sci-fi") then one on Sunday at 12:00 ("Sci-fi Wars").
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| War of the geeks |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, July 1st, 2002
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Busy, busy, busy. So much going on now, most of it fun.
So I was called as an expert in sci-fi movies and later Star Trek during the sci-fi convent here. And a very interesting thing happened. During the first discussion, "100 yearsof sci-fi" the conclusion we all reached was that sci-fi movies were alot better in the old days because they went more for good story than eye-candy (space battles, effects and whatnot). Back when they were deep and explored mankind instead of exploring the bounderies of CGI. Kinda frightening how close that conclusion is to my recent bashing of the music industry :). The general consensus was that it all started going to hell after "Alien" and "Star Wars". But there is hope now that sci-fi is once again going deep and making you think - A.I and Minority Report are two recent examples. (although I didn't really like A.I)
In the second debate we were suppose to have a little battle over which sci-fi universe (Star Trek, Babylon 5, Star Wars, Alien...) was the best one. I was the voice for Star Trek. And I believe I was the moral victor because my initial statement was "Since I'm a trekker I shouldn't be here, because the point of Star Trek is learning to respect other people and their opinions so I can't really tell anyone that they're wrong since in the Star Trek spirit no opinion can be wrong". Hehe, tell that to any Babylon 5 freak who always sends in his navy of Whitestars...
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| US of freaking A |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, July 4th, 2002
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Well happy birthday to the United States of America. About 220 years old and they're running the world, bombing Afghanistan, makes the stockmarkets crash, arming their citizens to the teeth, demanding the palistinian leader to be replaced, killing their own citizens in the name of justice and demanding that their soldiers get immunity from the first ever international court for warcrimes. Way to go :)
One of my favorite tracks at the moments is the "Star of '45" medley with alot of 60' and 70's songs all bunched up into one. And the lyrics for one of them, some anti-Vietnam war song I suppose, is very applicable to Bush - "you say you don't believe in war, well what's that gun your touting?"
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| Oooooops |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, July 5th, 2002
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So I finally did it - had a big accident with my car. I'm not surprised, I've had it coming for as long as I've been driving! I was at a party in Åkersberga, north of Stockholm. I stayed sober because I knew I was driving home. So at about 11 pm. I get into my car and start to drive home. Come to a runabout, turn into the runabout and just at the apex I lose all grip and just go straight forward into a 6 feet deep ditch and just go straight on for a good 40 feet until I come to a stop, avoiding everything man-made in the process. First a nice woman stops to see that I'm ok, then Markus and his future wife Linda drives by and doesn't believe what they're seeing but stops to see if I'm ok and what can be done.
We look at the mess and I'm just thinking "shit, is my car ok?" while they're thinking "shit, is Kris ok?". Fortunately the answer is yes to both of them. Except a muddy car and a little unbalanced wheel everything is ok! I can blame it on bad grip (it had been raining), or bad tyres (I've always said they have terrible grip!) but the idiotic truth is that had I gone a bit slower I'd come home 1 minute later and made the curve.
The nicest surprise was a bunch of guys that drove by, saw that something was wrong, stopped, took a look at it and said "this is do-able" So in reverse they drove my car out of the ditch, which turned out to be a muddy little water stream. I was shaking a little so I wasn't really in any condition to drive backwards. So a huge thanx to these guys I'd never seen before and probably never will - saved my day!
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| V |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, July 6th, 2002
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So "V" started on swedish TV last night. I love that TV series. It's got everything good sci-fi should have - good entertainment, good premise, good characters, good actors, good dialogue, good effects (for the era) and something this series has plenty of - historical references. Watch the series and replace all the times they say "scientists" with "jewish" and you'll find it pretty scary!
It could almost pass as a historical documentation of the rise of the Third Reich, the operation of the French resistance and the persecusion of jews. I think Kenneth Johnson hit the mark with that show. Too bad it didn't work out in the long run :(
Btw, a question of human behaviour ; my sense of humor is pretty much based on sarcasm, irony and just mean quick one-liners. That's usually ok because most people can take it. Yesterday I found someone who couldn't. This person had sent over his new website he wanted me to put up for him and he asked me again yesterday to put it up, totally oblivious about my adventures behind the wheel. So I said "So what if I crashed my car last night, as long as I put up your homepage everything will be fine". Any normal person would've replied something like "oh, sorry, I didn't know. Are you ok?". But not him. His reply was 33 capital letters screaming "how tha hell could I've known!?" and then a comment that I'm always "so f*cking rude!". So how could he have known? Well my sister found out by reading this space. So had the guy that I called friday morning to ask for a vacation day. So how does this person react to the suggestion of reading my homepage? 43 more capital letters and another curse was the reply.
If you've followed this diary-thing a while you should know who in my circle of friends has a real hard time taking criticism.
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| Reflections |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, July 7th, 2002
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So have I learnt to appreciate life on another level now after my car accident?... Not really. Probably because I never felt like my health was in danger, although now that I've gone over it a few times I realise it may very well have ended alot worse than it did. But what I do appreciate on another level know is the obligatory skid training we have here in Sweden. A 4 hour course in which you learn what it's like to lose control of a car. 'Cause without that training I'm pretty sure I would've reacted in the normal way by trying to make that turn instead of aiming for the softest place to crash.
I've also learnt to appreciate helpful strangers, and hope to become one too some day :)
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| So... |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, July 10th, 2002
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So my mother thinks I should stop using "So" to start these updates. But you know, it's like everyone has a word or expression they use abnormally much. Like a F1 commentator uses "precisely" on average 1.21 times per lap, and Juan Pablo Montoya uses "you know", and Schumacher "to be honest" and Natalie Portman "like" and so on. So I use "so", so sue me :)
And Will Smith and Wycleaf Jean are in town. And boy do we know it, it's been hyped to the max in the media. Are they really so bored they have to write what these two guys had for breakfast? It's like a couple of weeks ago when the biggest headline was that princess Madeleine was finally old enough to buy her own alcohol. I can really see that happening, Madeleine buying her own alcohol. Exactly how would that go? In case you didn't know, we have government control on alcohol so we have a special chain of stores that only sells alcohol, noone else is allowed to. You can't stop at a 7-11 and buy anything stronger than 3.5%. And these places tends to get very overcrowded, especially around the holidays. So yeah, I can really see Madeleine waiting in line to buy her alcohol. And then being asked about her age and ID card to prove it. As if ...
(now all the smart readers are thinking "how can you bash the media for talking about it when you're just as bad". Well, I don't get the hundreds of thousands of hits everyday or sell a million issues! They should have something better to cover than that!)
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| I'm too old for this |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, July 13th, 2002
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Yesterday I got two more "signs you're getting old". I'd better start a list with those signs 'cause they're getting more frequent!
I was out with friend gang # 1 consisting of my american buddys, Eva and some other trekking friends. First we went to Grönan (Stockholm's amusement park), then to "T.G.I Friday's" and they kept raising the volume of the music as the evening came closer and closer to midnight. So we actually had to ask the waitress to turn down the volume. I've never done that before!
After that we all split up and I knew that my friend gang # 2 (consisting of high school friends) was suppose to be partying around in Stockholm too. But I couldn't get energized enough to join their party! I remember when I could just start partying at midnight and keep going 'till 5 in the morning when the first train home left!
So that was 2 more. I don't like that. What will become of me !? I can tell you what won't become of me - a homosexual! Seriously, I was really charming on friday night, was able to charm the girl in Grönan to give me a prize even though I kept missing, and then charmed my way to a free dessert at Friday's. But I think she was overcompensating because I got a huge load of brownies, chocolate ice cream and chocolate sauce, so I think she was just gonna push how much I could eat. And trust me, the plate was empty when we left.
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| Helpful strangers |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, July 15th, 2002
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And just when I thought I was the most charming man on the planet I get reality thrown in my face! As I was driving home from my parents place out on the countryside where the busses only goes once every two hours I saw a woman standing in the middle of nowhere waiting for the bus. Since I had been driving that road for a while and hadn't seen any bus, I thought she might have just missed it and needed a ride or something. It turns out that she had indeed missed it (but she was hoping it was running late), and the next bus wasn't due for another two hours.
So I asked if she wanted a lift to catch up with the bus which she did, but she did not wanna get into a car with a stranger, especially not a single 100-kilo 27 year-old. And who can blame her? I probably would've reacted the same way if I'd been a woman. But I felt really uncomfortable just leaving her standing in the middle of nowhere like that, I just hope she lived around there so she had somewhere to go. That's another example how a few bad men can ruin it for the rest of us.
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| Strangers in the dark |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, July 16th, 2002
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Hm, about this "women fearing strange guys"-thing, it reminds me of a problem that we guys have. Imagine this scenario that have happened to me alot ; coming home late, say around 11, and walking home from the train station. Now I take the scenic route home, it's a bit longer but I'm the "smell the flowers"-kinda guy. And 15-20 meters ahead of you is a woman also walking home, alone. What do you, as a guy, do ? The women I've heard answer that says "walk past her, then she won't see you as a threat". But how do you do that without scaring her? I mean, if you all of a sudden start walking faster she'll grab the mace! And I can't walk slower to increase the distance, 'cause... well, women's normal walk-pace is my slow-pace. If I'd walk any slower I'd be standing still, and we're back to the mace. It's a very uncomfortable scenario. For both of us I guess :(
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| Party songs |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, July 17th, 2002
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Next big party-track that'll top the charts will be Alexia's "Don't you know". Time will prove me right. Again.
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| Morning routine |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, July 19th, 2002
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| 6:10 | : | My alarm clock starts beeping followed by a THUMP as my hand come crashing down. | | 6:12 | : | My cell phones alarm clock goes off which actually wakes me up. | | 6:20 | : | I step into the shower. | | 6:27 | : | I crawl back into bed. | | 6:30 | : | I listen to the news. | | 6:39 | : | I put my clothes on. | | 6:42 | : | I shave. | | 6:44 | : | I brush my teeth. | | 6:46 | : | I put on some aftershave, deo and spray while thinking about the ozone layer. | | 6:47 | : | I arm myself with wallet, keys, security card, coins (for the coke machine), buss card, food stamps, cell phone, sunglasses and the CD I burnt the night before. | | 6:49 | : | I turn off all lights, lock my door and start walking to either the train station or my car. |
I bet that's more than you wanted to know about me, huh?
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| Good or bad timing? |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, July 21st, 2002
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This weekend I set a new standard in great timing. Unfortunately, I also set a new standard for bad timing :( It all started on friday evening when I got a little stomach ache. Nothing serious, or so I thought. Then I woke up on saturday morning feeling even worse. But a Neurofen or two took the pain away so I could enjoy the saturday morning Formula 1 practice. After that my sis calls me up and tells me to get my ass down to my parent's place in Ösmo (about a 40 minute drive) because they had to see the F1 qualifying. Trying to live up to my "never say no to women"-rule I obliged, and after my brother Jocke was done playing his round of Warcraft III on the 'net I averaged 120 kph going there and sat down in their soffa and turned on the TV exactly when the pit exit light turned green. Talk about excellent timing!
But then my stomach ache started up again and I slept a little, hoping that'd help. No such luck, so by Saturday evening I had to go home and tried to go to sleep again. Sunday morning comes and I can't even sit up. I managed to walk the few meters from my bed to my TV soffa and from the soffa to my cola fridge, other than that I've spent all this day tucked down in front of the TV. And that is exceptionally bad this weekend! Because ever since we set a date for my friend Markus' wedding I've been looking forward to his bachelor party. It's one of the few forms of parties I've never been to (that and a bridal shower). And today was suppose to be the big day for that party. I've been looking forward to it a long time, even took monday off from work so I wouldn't worry about the hangover. I feel so bad not beeing there to celebrate his last week as a bachelor. Damn, damn, damn. I just hope he had fun and that I can compensate next week during his wedding.
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| Catching up on stuff |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, July 22nd, 2002
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I'm feeling a little better today, but still far from perfect. Hope time will heal this wound, 'cause I really hate going to the doctor. It's just something I don't do.
Fortunately, I had taken a vacation day today so I've been just relaxing all day, looking at movies. And one movie gave me an idea for a new feature on this site - top 5 lists. Inspired by "High Fidelity". I know it's real "wanna be"-style to take after a cool thing from a movie like this, but I really like their quote "it's what you like, not what you are like". So over the next weeks you'll be seeing a lot of "top 5"-lists on this site. Hope you'll enjoy it.
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| WTC |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, July 24th, 2002
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I saw the documentary of why the WTC collapsed, the one told from an architectrual point of view. And I found myself, every time they showed a replay, wishing that the second plane would miss. Am I the only one who does that?
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| Top 5 movies |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, July 26th, 2002
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This is actually the hardest one of them all. A movie has to live up to alot of things to come in here. Most of leave me changed in some way, have effected my psyche and my opinions. But still, movies are made to entertain, so that's another thing it has to live up to! # | Movie | Motivation | 5. | | The best Kevin Smith flic to date. It's got some of the best dialogue ever written. Alyssa's speech about how hard it is finding that right one that cutting off 50% of the population didn't seem right is totally unforgettable. As is Holden's speech in the car. And their fight in the parking lot outside the arena. Not to mention the "Star Wars is racist"-rant in the opening! Simply amazing! | 4. | | This movie may seem long, but it certainly doesn't feel like it when you're watching it. It's a great story about the human spirit, hope and payback. Just see it and you'll see what I mean. | 3. | | The best movie combining a very taboo romantical story all covered up in an action flic. All the actors were really great, but Portman just rocked as Mathilda! And it had good music too. It's got such a different story and script that I just love. | 2. | | One of the best historical movies ever! A terrible but true story, and as long as there's a movie made about it we'll never forget it. | 1. | | This movie was just awesome! It asked some really interesting human questions ("are we, as a race, happier because of technological advancements?"), mixes some religious aspects into it, it had a great sci-fi story with amazing creativity and a surprisingly strong scientific background. Then it had some absolutely awesome effects and superb sound! And it also made sure to establish that USA isn't running the world. |
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| Great weekend |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, July 29th, 2002
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And so I'm back from a rather enjoyable weekend. Started off strong on friday evening with doing... my laundry. Ok, that wasn't even an inch amount of fun (hey, if some can use lightyears as a meassure of time, I can use inch to meassure fun!). But I did get a chance to learn Warcraft III a bit better.
Then on Saturday it was time for a wedding. My friend Markus finally tied to knot with his "dude, she's 16!"-Linda. When they met, Markus was around 22 and Linda was only 16. Now, 9 years later, they finally married. And out of all the couples I've seen, some of which have made me realise the upsides to being single, these two have been the complete opposite - making me realise that girlfriends aren't mean and guys can still do their thing. We'll see if that still applies now that they've taken it to the next level.
The wedding was over and done with very quickly, less than 30 minutes (and last a lifetime. Hopefully!). Then it was time for the dinner afterwards. And that complicated things for me! My "Rules of Conduct" include some gentleman-rules, like opening the door and picking up the bill at restaurants. Some gentleman-stuff I've ignored because they... in all honesty - make women seem incompetent. But during this dinner all these rules applied. Pulling out chairs, making sure her wine glass was never empty (I thought this rule only applied when you had other intentions in mind?) and so on. I didn't know people still did that... Anyway, nothing happened that I'll regret later.
Sunday arrived and off to the big city of Stockholm to take a walk down chick-lane (Drottninggatan). This is the kind of street that'll make you twist your neck, especially in summer time. And then to O'Learys sportsbar to enjoy a Formula 1 race and the company of my two sisters and one of the Pauls (the other one is not into F1). Oh, and Jocke was there too. And for the first time that I've been there they got my order wrong. But me, being the "I'm not afraid of new things"-kindaguy, ignored that and just went ahead anyway.
So generally speaking - a very, very great weekend indeed!
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| Later that same day... |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, July 29th, 2002
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Another couple made in heaven, Tomas & Jenny, also had a happening weekend and adding to the "world is already overcrowded"-problem by having a daughter.
CONGRATULATIONS!
(and there were much rejoicing)
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| Parking problems |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, July 30th, 2002
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Remember my rant about how James Bond never has trouble parking his cars? Well I found out this weekend that atleast Natalie Portman has trouble with that, as this picture shows :)
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| Hitting on women sucks |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, August 2nd, 2002
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As I've said a couple of times, I'm not a big believer in love at first sight or getting feelings just looking at a woman. My philosophy has been that a beautiful woman can only peak my interest, nothing more. So how come I'm still thinking of a woman I saw and who's beauty I was admiring for hours but never got around to talking to? It's been 6 days, let it go!
See my biggest problem, which is the main contribution to why I'm still single, is that I can never take the initiative with women. It just doesn't work for me, I tense up, get reminded of how I've been burnt in the past and end up looking like a geek. If I even get that far! Last saturday, I didn't get that far! She was constantly on her feet running around during the dinner and later she was always surrounded by her women friends. And if I suck at going up and talking to a beautiful woman standing alone, I'm ten times more nervous and afraid if they are in a group. It's like flying into enemy territory, being shot down and reminded that you forgot the parachute! Ofcourse, there is no certainty you will get shot down unless you take a chance. But I can't do it. So the only thing stopping me is me :(
But I'm still working on it, very slowly.
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| The Parlor |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, August 6th, 2002
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Haven't been doing anything special, spent the weekend doing my best to distract my mind from the vision I saw at the wedding last week...
But I've got something great in store for everyone! The Parlor ! This is a short movie that is just awesome. Pretty weird, some nice twists and great dialogue. Totally independant and if it weren't for the internet, most people would never have seen it!
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| Even more babies! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, August 9th, 2002
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I had a perfectly good reason for not updating this place, but I guess I have to now - yet another couple made in heaven, Sandor & Josefin, got a son two days ago. Huge congrats and all good fortune blah blah to them!
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| Busy busy |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, August 14th, 2002
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Now what have I been doing so much that I haven't been able to stop? Programming PHP! Again! And once I get started programming I won't stop until it's all done. And now I think it is. I'm really annoyed at myself for not being able to go to bed without keep thinking of this project and coming up with new ideas and trying to solve old problems. I'm a really weird and nutty guy.
There was also another reason I wasn't updating, but I'll come off as sad and pathetic if I tell you...
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| Music |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, August 17th, 2002
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When asked "what kinda music do you like?" I've always answered it with something like "I'm not into any special genre. I like the tracks, individual songs!". What I mean by that is that I'll listen to almost any kinda of music, as long as the song itself is good. Sometimes a musician/group that I like makes a bad song that I really dislike (like Meatloaf for example!). Then there are some musicians/groups that I dislike that does a song I actually like (like Britney Spears).
There are a few that have made my list of people who can't do a song I will like. Eminem just made that list. All pop-groups put together by all these star-search TV-shows are also there.
Then there are very few that are on the list of people who can do nothing wrong. Who's work I like no matter if it's good, bad or crappy lyrics. Today I saw a documentary featuring one of those very few people - Jewel. I remember when I first saw her, it was on some MTV show. It was just her, her guitar and a piano and she was performing "Foolish Games". I just fell in the love with her voice and the overall feel of the song. Went out and bought the CD right away and never looked back. And I'm still kicking myself for not getting tickets to see her when she was here in Stockholm. Another person on this list is Moby.
So now you know.
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| Obituaries |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, August 21st, 2002
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The other day some person called me trying to sell a subscription to a newspaper, DN. As usual when this happens I just reply "nah, I read everything on the web, it's all there", and they just take that excuse and that's the end of that conversation. But there's one thing that is NOT published on the web - obituaries. I wonder if there's a law prohibiting it or why, but they don't publish them on the web at all. It would make things a little easier having them on the web so you could just send the link to everyone instead of telling them to buy the paper... (yeah, I know, there are bigger problems to dwell on than this)
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| It's been 6 months now... |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, August 22nd, 2002
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August 25th, you know what that means? 6 months since I suddenly lost my best friend. My spontaneous reaction was "is that all?", it feels like ages ago since I last spoke to him. Since we shared some jokes, watched movies together, just sat down at a bar testing new beers and stuff. But at the same time it feels like it was just yesterday that this entire thing happened. I remember those weeks as if it was yesterday...
So how have life proceeded since then? Pretty well I think. Although I did suddenly realise that alot of my life has been converted to routines and procedures. Like I'm just going through day by day waiting for something to happen. And I don't like that. So I'll see what I can do to change it. And I still find myself thinking "I gotta tell Eden about this" when I stumble on something new I know he would've liked. Guess that'll have to wait until we meet again in Sto Vo Kor.
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| 24 |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, August 28th, 2002
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I just got a new favorite TV show. "24". The show that finished its first season in the states and got like 10 Emmy nominations. Well worth it! It's about a anti-terrorist unit trying to stop the assassination of a presidential candidate. So far, nothing major. But the series wins in it's originality!
First original thing is that it takes place in real time. So one show, with commercial brakes, is one hour, so the entire season only covers one day. I didn't think it'd keep up the pace, but I'm in the eleventh hour right now (get it?) and it's still exciting. Also really well written and pretty good filmed. Have only spotted two major screw-ups, but that's because they don't settle for one camera angle, they always seem to have two cameras rolling. ATLEAST. And with a little hi-tech phoning some interesting scenes can be produced, like one in episode 10 when the lead character is being chased and has his cell phone on and four different people are listening in on what's happening, and they are all cut in into one frame, pretty interestingly done. More original programming like this please! And credit to the Internet for supplying me with these episodes.
(since alot of people are always trying to relate violence and/or sex-crimes to the internet somehow, I just want to offer a different opinion about it!)
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| Offline |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, September 2nd, 2002
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I did something this weekend that I don't think I've ever done before. I never logged onto my computer at home! Seriously, from about 11 on friday night until I got to work at 8 am this morning I never logged onto my computer, not to check my mail, not to check my icq, not to read the latest Natalie-news! It's not the first time I've been without computers (that week in Kenya was a real trial!), but it's the first time I've been home, with a computer available, without going online or anything. And it felt good. Real good as a matter of fact. So relaxing just kicking back and doing other stuff than programming or webdesigning or graphics management or gaming or something. Does this make me sound pathetic? Don't know, you'll have to be the judge of that.
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| Queues |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, September 4th, 2002
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Ask me how long it took for me to drive home the other day! Long enough to hear 26 tracks of Moby's "Play"-album. "But that album only has 18 tracks!". You're right, it does, which means that I listened to it almost 1 1/2 times. I don't know how much time that actually is, should be around 90 minutes. That's right, I prefer measuring time in what I actually do, or what I would do if I wasn't stuck in traffic. Because time really is, much like money, something artificial that we humans have created. The only three naturally occuring cycles are days (Earth's rotation), 4 weeks (the moon's orbit around the Earth) and years (the Earth's orbit around the sun), the rest is just made up of a bunch of people. Don't know exactly where I'm going with this, I guess I just want people to stop and smell the flowers a bit more often like I do. And I still don't have a wrist watch :)
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| Being on-call sucks |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, September 9th, 2002
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So I'm on call this week. Again. For the third consecutive week! I work as a computer consultant, and one of our most important customer is this big lawfirm that I've been working at on and off for the past year. And as a part of us taking over their network, we have an on-call service for them. And I'm it again. There are three major points to being on call - 1) Be close enough so you can get there within the time specified in the contract 2) Make 100% certain you can answer the cell phone when they call. This includes staying up till midnight (can't go to sleep and hope you wake up when it rings!) and also making sure there is a clear reception where you are and 3) be 100% sober. Now, any of these three things I can do, no prob. But combine them all, for an extended amount of time, and what kind of life do you get? No going out for beers with the pals, no going home to my parents, no going to the movies and you can forget about dating. And this is the third week in a row!
Naturally there is an upside - money.
But does that compensate giving up the freedom of just going to a movie if you feel like it, or to drive down to my parents for a nice dinner or something?... There must be some part of me that thinks so, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. Again and again. Guess it all goes back to the old saying - "time is money". I just wish you could reverse it and buy more time :)
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| Dedications & memorials |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, September 18th, 2002
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This may come off as a bit cold or just asshole-like, but am I the only one who's tired of all dedications/memorials and stuff that's gone on over the past year? It seems that when someone, especially if they are famous, dies it has to be made into something huge and special. Two great recent examples of that is Aaliyah and Lisa 'Lefteye' Lopez. Both made decent music and they may both have been good people, but with all stuff that's been done in the media (like the recent MTV VMA dedication to Lopez) you'd think they were up for some saint-status or something.
And then ofcourse there is all the 9/11 (which by the way, we swedes would write 11/9). Naturually it was a terrible event and a huge loss of life, completely over the top and I in no way condone what happened. But why was I asked to hold a minute of silence last wednesday? Anton, a friend at work, got really upset, borderlining mad over this entire thing. At first I thought he was overreacting, but at the end of the day, with all the hype in non-american media, you'd think it was the biggest disaster that ever happened and that the world "owes" america (especially their government) something?! Wtf is all that about? Ofcourse I feel sorry for what happened and to the people who lost a loved one, but it has in absolutely no way affected me or my life, so why should I feel anything about that entire thing? Let's reverse it - can any one american say why we swedes should hold a silent moment or two next saturday (Sept. 28th)? I'm pretty sure not a single one of them can, because why are they suppose to know that is the date when Estonia sank! Which, if you'll excuse the cold Vulcan part of me, was atleast 10 times worse, percentage-wise, for sweden than 9/11 was for US of A. "But Estonia was not an act of terrorism against civilian targets" you may say. True, but the Estonia disaster was a random event that killed about a thousand people, which I consider a far worse human disaster than some misguided terrorist who's been fooled into thinking that USA is the devil. But from their perspective, just how wrong are they? I'm not gonna try and justify what they did, but lets face it, USA has a huge tendancy to play cop in the world. And as long as they have the UN support, that's fine with me. But I can atleast understand why the islam world are getting upset when the US government is demanding that Yasir Araft be replaced by someone more US friendly!
I, myself, am pretty US friendly when it comes to the people, it's just their government I object to.
"Dude, if you're so against it why do you have a memorial for Eden!". That's different. That was a personal tragedy for me that I dealt with in this way. I have never ever asked anyone to feel sorry for me or a minute of silence for him. Not even when the 6 month mark came and went did I tell anyone! And it's not like I'm doing a huge thing about it either, it's there, read it of you want to. Or not.
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| Charities |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, September 29th, 2002
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How many charities do you support? That's right, you! One of the few things that I'm proud over in this world is the fact that I support (financially and ideologically (yes, that's a word!)) Amnesty International, Greenpeace, The Swedish Red Cross and Unicef. And I just signed up for a new Unicef program ("A Drop of Water") and got a cool pin to put on my jacket for it.
I know I'm really patting myself on the back here, but my point is - what do you do? I wanna make you feel bad if you're not supporting one single charity, so bad that you'll have to start after reading this. And I wanna make the ones that do give something feel a little better. And I also wanna make a point to everyone who says I'm too obsessed buying stuff for myself (most recently a new $1500 TV) and thinks that I'm too tight!
I would be blood donor too if the hospital that's close enough to walk to would allow me to give blood there...
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| Fans |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, October 2nd, 2002
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May I make a suggestion to a social study in human behavior? Why are certain people fans of certain teams!? I'm not sure why I'm a supporter of Djurgården hockey, but I think it was that at that time I thought they were the best, and for the past 15 years I've been a supporter of theirs, although the past season was sucky (and the current seems to go even worse). And I'm a fan of Ferrari's since -97, when they were just getting good and now they are undeniably the best, to my great delight. But how comes a person becomes a fan/supporter of a team? It's not genetics, if it was my sister wouldn't be a fan of Ferrari's competitors McLaren! It doesn't have with upbringing either, becuase why would my upbringing lead to me favoring an Italian team? And how comes certain people just can't be converted, and when they've made up their minds, everything else is 'wrong'. In the F1 community there is a debate right now as to what really went on during that last corner of the race in Indy, and a lot of people are just too serious about some stuff. Like a column written on a swedish motorsport website, Forza-Motorsport, a site I've come to respect and posted alot in their forums. But now they had a column that basically said "Michael Schumacher is an asshole". How can he say that, it's not like he knows him or anything, he just drives for the competition? I can understand Finns or Columbians being fans of "their drivers!", but we swedes can't really say that... This is a pretty interesting side of human behaviour for me...
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| Moby |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, October 5th, 2002
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Let's talk about Moby! I've been a Moby fan for a couple of years now. Hell, if I had a theme playing when I entered a building it'd be "Everloving"! First time I heard of him was when he did the techno cover of the Bond theme. The video for that was shot in Stockholm btw. And I love the Play album! What I also like about the dude, besides his music, is his personality. And his journal on his website that he updates, even when he's out touring the world! And I love how he bashes the political establishment in the US of A! I bough his 18 album the day it was released (I did not even download anything before that!) and loved it too. Although it was much more... calmer, smoother, subtle than his previous work. Anyways, I've somehow never seen the dude live, not even when he was here for the MTV EMA's in 2000, so I had to make due with the live part of the DVD. So when it was announced that he was gonna give a concert here in Stockholm I got excited, but that turned to disappointment as I didn't find anyone that wanted to pay $33 do go with me. I just accepted the loss, but then Henke (the old friend from my school daze) asked me a couple of weeks ago and wondered if I wanted to go! I hadn't even thought about asking him, because he's more into... the techno part, high BPS and stuff like that than I am, and since this concert was gonna mostly be with the new 18 songs I didn't think he'd be interested. But he was, and he got us ticket and yesterday was the M-day! The opening act was "Röyksopp", that Norwegian duo who makes OK music but really freaky videos. They opened with a bang and never stopped. And I mean that, loud bang that never stopped. At first I digged it but after 30 minutes it got a bit old. So they went off, the stage was rearranged, and then the dude came running in like he was on fire! Seriously, every thing I've ever seen with this guy he's always been calm and collected, even the live shows. But in those he's just had a few square meteres do work with, here he had the entire stage and he was everywhere! He mostly played songs from the Play and 18 album, but he also played the Bond theme and something totally unexpected... HEY, HO... LET'S GO!... Didn't see that coming! Add to that a hilarious DJ battle, a nice guitarr solo and ofcourse the usual Bush-bashing and it turned out to be a hell of a show!
In fact, I just have one little thing to compain about... they never played "Everloving" :( I really missed that, but the tempo of the evening, which more suited Henke than it did me, kinda made hard to play it. Twelve hours later and my right ears is still ringing! Trust me, use ear protectors when going to concerts like this! I though "nah, it's not gonna be that loud, and I almost never go to concerts so my ears can take it"... yeah, right!
But to quote the great man himself - that was some noble shit!
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| Cars creates stress |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, October 11th, 2002
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Why are people (including me) in such a hurry as soon as they get into a car? One of the first things you learn here in drivers ed. is that your greatest two foes are lack of time and sleep deprivation. I've been trying to start 5 minutes earlier when I go to work recently and I somehow arrive at work 10 minutes earlier... anyway, usually I'm queuing all the way into the central parts of Stockholm and in those queues you see som really fun behaviour, most of which are caused by everyones desire to go faster. The funniest example was last month : I come to a roundabout and was going to do a 270, i.e go off on the left exit. Problem was that it was jammed so I stopped halfway through to let the people coming from the other way through. Very nice, right? Well, the woman in the space wagon behind me didn't think so! She backed up and drove around me and filled the gap in front of me, effectively stopping a pretty heavy roundabout (Gullmarsplan, if you happen to live in stockholm). What was the point of that? She gaines like 3 meters!? People should really take more time when they are out driving!
Right now everyone who's even been in a car which I'm driving are saying "kris, you're pretty good at driving fast too!"... true I am, when it's all clear an no jams, yes I do. Like to feel the small g-forces my car can generate. But I'm not cursing or anything in traffic jams!
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| Musci. Again. |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, October 14th, 2002
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One of the hardest things to define about me is my taste in music! To give you an example of how diverse my taste is you can download my 2 favorite songs at the moment - 1) The theme from "Red Planet", really good techno & ambient feeling there and 2) Norah Jones "Don't Know why", really nice and soft song. After listening to these two, try and put me into a genre...
Speaking of music, the other day I flipped over on VH1 and saw the video to Leann Rimes' "Life Goes On"... I remember her in the video to "Coyote Ugly", didn't react that much, but DAMN is she beautiful in this video! Simply amazing... damn I love women...
But to switch topic and talk guy-music - also just saw the video to Jimmy Fallon's "Idiot Boyfriend"... DUDE, I was laughing so hard I missed half of it and had to download it and laugh at it again! I absolutely LOVE his clothes, coreography and... well, you just gotta see it yourself!
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| CSI |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, October 17th, 2002
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Do you watch "C.S.I" ? That US show about some forensic experts in Las Vegas. I'm still trying to learn how to like that show. I mean, it's a pretty good show, good stories, good science, acceptable acting and, of course, Marg Helgenberger. But there is one thing that I don't like about it. One thing so important and so bad about it... the dialogue. I really don't like the dialogue! Half of it is written to make Grissom sound like Yoda (seriously, when someone says something he always fills in with something philosophic) and the rest is just a set up for some good one liner. I don't like that, but they are getting better at it. And now they have a spin-off as well, "C.S.I Miami". Gee wiz, I shouldn't be surprised at the length some people go to to exploit a good idea as much as they can. But this did.
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| Ed |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, October 23rd, 2002
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How about Ed? Totally the opposite of CSI! Not the least bit exciting, no action, no suspense. Just a good hearted show about good character, with alot of humor and something that CSI lacks - extraordinary well written, funny and great delivered dialogue! Do I spend too much time in front of the TV? Probably, but considering I payed $1500 for it, you bet!
On another note - I'm attending a course this week , Advanced Novell Administration. One thing never siezes to amaze me and that is how totally different Microsoft and Novell are in the way they do things, but the weird thing is that their server operating systems (Windows 2000 and Netware 5.1) appear to be doing the EXACT same things! Almost all services and stuff you get in Windows 2000 you also get in Netware 5.1. Netware is just ten times more difficult than Windows 2000!
But I shouldn't really be complaining since this just gives me extra work...
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| It's all about $$$ |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, October 26th, 2002
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I happened to catch 60 minutes today. One of the stories was, appropriately, about something I've talked about on this page in the past week - TV shows. And not in a good way. The story was about how different TV networks in the states market themselves and their shows - some target the usual "age 18-49"-group, and some don't. The actual point of the entire story almost got by me because I was so upset at hearing how 2 network execs, 2 researchers in the field as well as a PR firm exec sat and debated, without any emotion, about how shows are created to appeal certain demographics, and how "strong" these demographics when it comes to sales and advertisement. Like "people at 55 may watch more TV than a 24 year old, but the 24 year old spends more money so we're gonna go after him/her instead". Am I being too naive in thinking that TV-making wasn't as capitalistic as movie-making is? Listening to these people it actually seemed worse! One of them actually mentioned "Ed" as a show they created to target the more intelligent 30 something white viewer with a deep wallet. I was quite offended at hearing that, not that I fall into that category (although I hope to one day), but at how pathetic it sounds. I used to think of TV making as a form of art, but after seeing this, I'm having my doubts.
But that's just one more point in my "evidence that human values are being replaced with $-signs"-list that is getting quite long now. Remember people - in Starfleet there is no such thing as currency! (I wish I could say "Star Trek", but after the Ferengis it's all gone to hell)
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| Planning the budget |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, October 31st, 2002
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Another thing about me that I'm also pretty proud over is the fact that for the past 6 years or so I've been able to plan my economy so good that on the 25th (payday) of every month I've had between 0 to $10 in my bank account! No matter how much expenses, or incomes, I have that month, I've always ended up with basically nothing exactly when it's time for the salary. Then I bought a car, and somehow I was actually able to equal that out as well. That is until this month... and this is why I hate our capitalistic society so much - I actually lost sleep trying to make my budget go together in my head! And if I get so out of wack thinking about it, what about people who have a family to support? Like all those single moms you read about!? It actually got so bad in my planning that I was thinking about not going to my friends 30th birthday this weekend because I couldn't afford anything, and that felt awful! And who do I have to blame (except the company I work for who won't give me a raise)? Noone but myself! With a little bit of planning last month I should've been able to balance it out this month, and with alot of planning I should by now have been able to put some money away for that rainy day! So I guess I'm no better than the people who I constantly harass for doing things they know are bad for them! Fortunately I have great (supportive) parents, but that sucks having to ask them for a loan!
Oh yeah, and happy halloween to everyone in the states!
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| Am I too liberal? |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, November 1st, 2002
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Some people have asked me how I can be this open and expose myself and the weird thoughts that are going through what little excuse I have for a brain. I don't think I've got a good answer for that yet. But this morning, as I was slouch-surfing around the web I ended up on a webpage that made this place look like the Vatican - AsiaCarrera.com! Yes, that tri-lingual piano-playing, HTML-typing woman with a registered IQ of 156 that have done some adult movies. I wasn't sure what I was gonna find on her very own site, but I wasn't expecting to end up laughing my shoes off as I read the F.A.Q! If you're not afraid of a little porno-talk and love humor then please, head over there and take a look! It was also a bit self-enlightning when it comes to prejudice and being judgemental...
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| Best parents in the whole world |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, November 4th, 2002
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What a wacky weekend that was! Saturday was a national holiday here in sweden, so we only worked half a day on friday. And I'm not sure I can call that working because I didn't do that very much there. Then I went "home" (to my parent's place that is) for the annual halloween party that my sister arranges every year for the kids and guess what, didn't do anything then either. I actually think friday was the laziest day all year for me. On saturday I actually worked, but to compensate for that I went to good old friend Markus' to celebrate his 30th. Damn good party, but I had to leave early though, 'cause I have to study for another certification this afternoon. Throw in the arrival of Star Wars Episode II DVD and you've got a hectic weekend right there.
But one thing is certain - I have the best parents in the world! I'm pretty sure everyone (ok, most people) think they have the best, but I know I do. I could write pages and pages about how great my mother and my father, but I'm afraid I'd forget something and they'd make sure I never forget it, so I'm not gonna write a list, I'm just gonna say that I really do have the best parents in the world :)
Everytime I get into a discussion about violence in movies, in computer games and bad things about the internet I use myself as an argument that most of that is bullshit, because if there was some truth to it I should be a mass murdering, bomb-making anarchistic pedophile. But I'm not, and the reason is that my parents did such a great job with me that I'm not screwed up in any of those ways, they made sure I knew the difference between violence in the movies and in real life and they made sure I got that little switch in my head that says "no, this is wrong".
So mom, dad - thank you and I love you :)
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| LAN!! |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, November 7th, 2002
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This weekend I'm gonna do something I haven't done in a long time - attend a LAN party. Here's a short description - a bunch of gamers pack their computers and head off to one building, hook everything up and just play games against/with each other for a few days, and there's usually a tournament. Now I know what you're thinking - "oh my good how anti-social, pathetic and geeky". You're wrong! It's not anti-social - there's plenty of human interaction, and you can actually go around blowing up your best friend or anyone else you want to and laugh it off. You get to meet the people you've been playing against/with, swap war-stories. Pathetic? What's pathetic about a bunch of people getting together at one place to train and tune their skills? It's the same as a friendly game of soccer! Geeky? Just because it's with computers, isn't it? Do you know how much a computer, with monitor, weighs!? Carrying all that around builds muscles, and we're not geeky anymore!... ok, that was a longshot, but I really don't like how people think "dude, that's pathetic" when I describe what I'm gonna spend my weekend doing. Or perhaps this is just more of my late teenage rebellion against my mother always saying "why don't you go outside and play"? (I never said my parents were perfect!)
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| Junk food |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, November 11th, 2002
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One thing about LAN parties everyone should know is what a beating your body takes! The food is terrible - pizza, cola, chips and snacks. And you suffer from sleep deprivation. Then your mind is focused 95% of the time when your playing some LAN game. And then ofcourse all the carrying around with your computer equipment. But believe you me - it was so great to get home and slip down in my bed and sleep for a good 10 hours, then it was up and go to work again :( But I had a helluva time!
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| Geek humor |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, November 12th, 2002
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Just how geeky am I? One example - I laughed my ass of today at the following joke:
> SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE CLUE >0
> 0 rows selected
Don't worry, if you didn't get it, you're normal.
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| MTV EMA |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, November 15th, 2002
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Everyone who knows me will tell you that I'm pretty childish and immature, and I'm fine with that. But yesterday I felt old and obsolete! I was talking to Dazza (of NP.com) on ICQ and he was telling me about the EMA's going down on MTV. I had no idea that was on, completely out of the loop. But I switched over to enjoy the show. And as I was talking with my friend on ICQ I found myself dissing almost everyone and all the modern pop music! Totally dissing it! Either that's because I'm too old, or the music has gotten worse! The only thing thing that saved it was Röyksopp's opening act and Moby's closing act, everything inbetween there was more or less dissed by me!
And there was only one category in which I DIDN'T diss all the nominees - "best new act", so maybe there is hope for me or the music industry yet! And Moby finally got recognition for his website! It's been way overdue! But one thing I'm pretty sure of - MTV has really lacked off over the years! They used to be cutting edge, no holds barred unrestrained music and entertainment! Today Pink can't say "bitch" in her lyrics, half of eminem's song has some mute built into them and that naked chick yesterday (I'm pretty sure that was pre-arranged!) will have some parts blurred out in the re-runs!
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| Prejudice |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, November 18th, 2002
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Let's combine two subjects I've already covered - prejudice and peoples likes/dislikes. Is it ok to like some artist or something because that person is say... TOTALLY HOT? Not without being very shallow! Well what if that person is very talented, still ok? But the real question is - can other people accept that you may like that person because of his/hers talent, not only because of 'that other thing'? Confused?
Let's take the example that prompted this question - t.A.T.u! When I was listening (yes, I listen to the TV which means the TV is on but I'm sitting in front of my computer!) to the pre-show to the MTV EMA's last thursday I heard this song that I like, "All The Things She Said". Pretty good song, very catchy. But I had no idea who did the song. So I turned around to see who it was. Turns out the "group" is called t.A.T.u. They are two teen chicks from Russia (one of which is totally hot). Then they start making out on the stage! Nothing much, hugs & kisses but still surprising. Although I should be if I'd pay attention to lyrics like "They say it's my fault but I want her so much"... Then my friend Dazza says that's one of the things they are famous for.
So the question I asked myself after that experience is - will people judge me as "superficial, typical guy who likes seeing two chicks go at it" simply because I like their music?
It's the same with Jeri Ryan (7 of 9 in Star Trek Voyager). I've always liked her, and not only because she's like the apex of sexiness, but because she's actually a good actress. But everytime I mention that I like her in any forum what so ever, people judge me because I can't possibly like her for her acting skills, can I?
What doesn't make this any better is the fact that I do it! A friend of mine likes Pamela Andersson, and I immediately threw that out the window as "shallow guy who likes big breast". Although in that specific case I might have been right, but it doesn't make me any better than anyone else :(
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| Labelling people |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, November 21st, 2002
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I accidentally saw an interview with the t.A.T.u chicks on MTV and got they came up with a pretty good quote - "we're not lesbians, we're just in love with each other". I liked that quote. Actually I like people who refuse to be labelled, and that quote pretty much summons that up!
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| Shawshank Redemption |
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Written by Kristoffer on Saturday, November 23rd, 2002
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After a hellish week at work (including working until 10 pm on wednesday fixing a crashed server) I was pretty happy when the clock hit 5 on friday to finally kick back, relax and enjoy a weekend without concerning myself about anything. But as I drove home my car started making funny noises, so I guess I'll have to take it to the shop for a $200 checkup plus fixing whatever is broken. And then it got even worse as my harddrive on my workstation quit on me - 50 gigs of data I'm never getting back, and I have to buy a new asap, that's another $150 right there.
So what does a normal, sane person do when stuff go this bad and it feels like the entire world is against hime? I have no idea, but I know what I do - I turn it off, tune it out and just watch a couple of movies. Which is what I spent saturday doing. One of those movies was "Shawshank Redemption". I don't think I can emphasize enough how incredible that movie is! It's just awesome! And especially when I was feeling like things were really not going my way, then seeing this movie which is basically about just how much a human being can handle and how incredible life and hope is, that felt like exactly the right medicine at the time!
Thank you Mr. Darabont!
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| Jenny from the block |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, November 26th, 2002
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I've got a terrible confession to make. I actually like Jen Lopez' "Jenny from the Block" :( It's not the lyrics (I couldn't care less about her trying to reconnect to where she grew up, and I'm surprised anyone else does!), and it's sure as hell isn't the video ( 1) She's in it 2) Affleck is in it 3) I don't pitty her one bit for having paparazzi's everywhere she goes), but there's just something there in the song that I like, and I don't like liking a Jen Lopez song!!! Somebody please say there's a hidden message in there that effects me on a subconscious level, that might explain it...
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| God of Joy |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, November 28th, 2002
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There must be a God somewhere, let's call it the "God of Joy". I must owe that f*cker money in a previous life or something! After last weekend when everything was going against me and I just said "to hell with it" I started the project of upgrading my computer at home. And yesterday when everything (except the new harddrive) was in place I enjoyed the most incredible gaming computer I've ever had! For the first time I was able to run a really graphics heavy game totally maxed out without any problems. Me = happy! This mornig, I got up and was still happy. Got to work, still happy. And then the "God of Joy" said "that's it!" and decided to ruin everything, and the mechanic called me and said "repairs on your car will cost about $250"... me = not happy! Why, why oh dear God of Joy won't you let me be happy for one continuos day! Please!!!
Or another example - took the train this morning (since my car is in the shop) and saw a very, very pretty woman on the train (who I really hope isn't reading this). Usually I would just think to myself "nice :)" and that'd be it. But oh no, I had to notice that she had something that appeared to be an Adam's apple, and all of a sudden I remember this "women don't have Adam's apples"-comment from Friends. But this one did, noway she was now or have ever been a guy, way too pretty for that. But it still ruined the entire trip for me.
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| ImOnlyKidding.com |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, December 2nd, 2002
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Every once in a great while my brain does something right and I come up with a funny idea that even I can be proud over. And today was one of those occasions - ImOnlyKidding.com. Believe it or not, but that domain wasn't take. But it is now, so in a couple of days typing "imonlykidding" will land you on this site. It'll take a couple of days for the DNS entry to replicate to the DNS roots due to the distributed architecture of the IP protocol. Don't you just love computer lingo!? :)
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| God of Joy #2 |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, December 4th, 2002
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Remember that God of Joy I was so upset with last week? Well, I must have done something worse than just owe him/her money, must have slept with his/her wife/husband or something really bad to piss him/her off (notice how very PC I am!). Just as I was getting my economy back together after the past two months ups'n'downs, including repairing my car for $270, and I was just starting to plan my X-mas budget when B A M! down comes a bill from Shell wanting $950 from me for parking fees - from June and July! Hello, it's December now!!! I am really, really sorry God of Joy, for whatever it is I may have done to piss you off, please! Let me enjoy X-mas atleast!!!!
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| God of Joy #3 |
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Written by Kristoffer on Wednesday, December 11th, 2002
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I'm getting really scared of the God of Joy right now! The last thing I need right now is more expenses! And that's the only thing I seem to be getting! Most recently my desk that broke down in three pieces as I was changing around things in my living room. What I really can't understand is everyone who says "more money, more problems"!? How is that possible!? I don't see how getting more money can give you more problems! Perhaps different problems like "geez, where am I gonna spend all my money today" or "do you mean I actually have to drive myself today"! So let's end this little update with something I'm pretty good at - a quote:
I believe the struggle for financial freedom is unfair
I believe the only ones who disagree are millionaires.
- Savage Garden, "Affirmation"
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| The season to give |
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Written by Kristoffer on Thursday, December 12th, 2002
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In this dark time of my life (the sun sets between 3 and 4 now!) when I'm totally broke I still found a way to contribute to charity - I've finally become a blood donor! Well, technically I haven't actually donated any blood yet, they just took samples to make sure I'm not dying of something that could affect my blood. And so it hit me - I haven't had a medical checkup for years, must be about 15 years ago or something! So I'm kinda nervous if they're gonna find something.
So give it up for my boss at work who dragged me to the blood donor place! But I still say you should be able to donate blood at Huddinge Hospital...
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| Irresponsible |
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Written by Kristoffer on Friday, December 13th, 2002
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After yesterday's update you may be thinking "how can you be a single, sexually active guy in the most babified city in the world, and not get atleast one HIV test!? If not for your sake than atleast for your partner's!". And you'd be right too, and I'm usually the first person to tell people how irresponsible it is not to use a condom. But that's just it - I do! And always have. I've even taken a raincheck once due to lack of one. With the one exception of the first time (I was not totally sober, it wasn't planned, she was calling the shots and I didn't have one nearby). But that's all it takes right, just one time? And that's when I started getting worried until I all of a sudden realised - I did get a blood analysis a couple of months after that trip to Kenya. So I'm not worried anymore. What's my point? - always use a condom and always have one nearby! And if you have really good friends/family, they'll give you one on your 25th birthday... ok, you had to be there to appreciate the joke...
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| Scrabble |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, December 16th, 2002
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Do you know what my biggest problem in school was? It wasn't being in the lower social rank, it wasn't the teachers, it wasn't the fellow students, it wasn't what we were reading - it was the fact I couldn't concentrate on reading more than a couple of pages at a time! I don't know why this is, but whenever I pick up a book I can only read 6 or 7 pages before I either have to do something else or my eyelids will close! It doesn't matter what it is I'm reading, if it's boring or exciting, same result! This was a huge problem back then, but for some reason I have no problem reading pages and pages of stuff on a computer screen. This has led to my not reading that many books. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've read more than maybe 5 books - willingly! And some pretentious people have looked down on me because of this little fact that I don't read books.
So why am I boring you with this information? Because I want you to understand the story behind the recent mystery - why do I rock in Scrabble - IN ENGLISH?!! Seriously - when playing against my Scottish born mother, my sister who has lived over there for years and have a Scottish husband, my father who has travelled the world for years and also married an english speaking person, when faced with that opposition, how can I win?! I don't get it, but I did it again - TWICE! And in that last round, when my sister and 'brother' realised I was leading they even did a team-move to beat me (he did a 42 point word that she challenged so he would get double points!), and failed (because "infirmed" wasn't in the dictionary!)! There must be something wrong because I'm not that good in these kind of social games!
With the exception of Trivial Pursuit, I suck at them! So with my reading problem and the handicap of never living in an english speaking country, how can I win in this game!? I don't get it...
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| Busy busy |
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Written by Kristoffer on Sunday, December 22nd, 2002
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Puh, that was a busy week! Except all the work at work, and being on-call and actually called in, I've been totally busy writing a new revolutionary section on NataliePortman.com.. revolutionary for us anyway :)
Which reminds me of that funny joke most of you didn't get ("select * from users where clue>0"), this is the end result of what I've been doing:"SELECT ARTICLE_ID, DATE_FORMAT(DATE, '%M %D, %Y') as FDATUM, PUBLICATION, COUNTRY, LANGUAGE, AUTHOR, TITLE, ROUND(RATING_POINTS/RATING_VOTES, 1) as RATING, RATING_VOTES, SYNOPSIS FROM articles WHERE $wherelan $wheremedia $wheretype $orderby1 $orderby2 LIMIT $limitvalue, $limit"
Yeah, it may look easy but it took a week!
Anyway, onto something much nicer - last minute Christmas-shopping! I realised on Thursday that I still haven't bought the presents for the grown-up part of our family so I had to find some time to do that. And since I'm working on Monday I planned it for Saturday. I expected half of stockholm to do the same, but thanks to the fact that I got in early I missed most of the crowds. And there was this one things that I thought was pretty funny.. an elderly man and his wife going around the hippest CD store with the list of things for their teenage grand-daughter and trying to pronounce "INXS" to the clerk.. something funny yet sweet about that whole scenario :)
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| The Osbournes |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, December 23rd, 2002
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I hope you watch the Osbournes? Probably the best thing to come out of MTV for a very long time! I love people who don't take themselves too seriously, who make a little fun of themselves, a little tongue-in-cheek humor. And The Osbournes are probably the apex of that kind of humor! Some things are just brilliant! They are on re-runs on european MTV now, and yesterday was the episode when Kelly has a birthday party and get's a tatoo. Anyway, for being the kind of person Ozzy is, sometimes even he can say something amazing. Like when he totally objected to the music (which was awful) that they were playing at the party and they asked him if they should change... "no, what for, it's not my party". I liked that :)
Anyway, sitting here at work on our helpdesk, maxing the subwoofer with X-mas songs and everything, waiting to go home for the holidays (and I really mean "home")... so until my next update...
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
And by the way - thanks for not asking what an un-hip geezer like myself was doing in a hip CD store... (see, I can make fun of myself too!)
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| Having fun |
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Written by Kristoffer on Monday, December 30th, 2002
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Ok, I'm sorry I've been neglecting this place over the holidays. I've been away for a couple of days during Christmas, and then I've just been totally relaxing while not doing much at all. Actually I've been watching alot of movies over the past week. Like the hilarious "Fat Greek Wedding" and today I finally saw the latest Bond flic (which I really enjoyed) but I'll wait until Wednesday to see the new Lord of The Rings quite simply because I saw the first one on the 1st of January. And tomorrow I'll be going to my sis and her hubby for a new years party so if I don't get to update tomorrow here's wishing you a happy new year!!!
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| Happy new year |
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Written by Kristoffer on Tuesday, December 31st, 2002
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Just a quick note before I'm out of here (as I'm watching the fireworks in Sydney) - Happy new year! And all things considering, it can't get much worse than 2002 can it?
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| Complete Menu |
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 Diary / Blogg |
| > > 2010 |
| > > 2009 |
| > > 2008 |
| > > 2007 |
| > > 2006 |
| > > 2005 |
| > > 2004 |
| > > 2003 |
| > > 2002 |
| > > 2001 |
| Kris who? |
| Biography |
| My Pictures |
| Eden Memorial |
| Links |
| My Travels |
| > > London, UK |
| > > Milan, Italy |
| > > Scotland |
| > > Czech Republic |
| > > Silverstone, UK |
| > > Hague, Holland |
| > > Rome, Italy |
| > > Copenhagen, Denmark |
| > > Ankara, Turkey |
| > > Helsinki, Finland |
| > > Kinshasa, Congo |
| > > Glasgow, UK |
| > > Abuja, Nigeria |
| > > Brussels, Belgium |
| > > Gdansk, Poland |
| > > Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| > > Sofia, Bulgaria |
| > > Budapest, Hungary |
| > > Singapore |
| > > Guatemala |
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| Random "me" picture |
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