This will be my last update as a 20-something guy. In 6 hours I’ll be a 30-something guy. So let us recap the past 10 years:
After 1 academically failed year at the University in Växjö, I moved back home, got a job I liked at great company. Got new friends, co-started a Trekker organization, started my home theater system, got an interest for Formula 1, got to go to Greece, got a promotion, got to go to Kenya. Moved to my own place (blasting housewarming party!). Got another promotion to the best job I’ve ever had (developing our e-commerce site), took a few trips on the party-boats over to Finland (another blasting party on my 25th birthday). Company went broke, got a drivers license, re-educated myself to pc techie, started working a little off and on at a lawfirm. Celebrated one sister’s 30th birthday in scotland, lost my best friend, got a job at the state department, travelled around the world, celebrated the other sister’s 30th birthday, visited Africa while suffering from salmonella and then got to go to Italy. Helped organize the first Star Trek Convention in sweden (ever) and spend a few days in the company of Tim Russ. Had a few lazy months as a consultant inbetween jobs. Finally got the boot and a headache that won’t go away and got a steady job at the lawfirm and bought the last piece for a home theater (projector)… and that brings us up to date.
Overall a good 10-year run I think. And to start my 30’s I’m gonna have a good get together tonight at The Dubliner tomorrow night (everyone’s invited) and then off to see the F1 race at Silverstone!
Well the past 24 hours have been really, really depressing! One of the things I hate about life is when good things end, which as everyone knows has to happen. Like when you get fired from your job and thus losing touch with alot of friends. Or when you’ve gotten used to travelling around the world and all of a sudden that ends. Well on friday night I finally saw the last episodes of “Babylon 5” (still one of the best written TV shows ever!) and the last two episodes are all about this, good things that come to an end. And today I saw the last episode of modern Star Trek. End of an era. For the first time since 1987 there won’t be a new Star Trek episode made for quite a while. And before I was ready to accept that, Sweden got knocked out of the world championship in one of the best games I’ve seen in a long, long time. So yeah, all good things still come to an end. But still, this was a very rewarding saturday.
Well that was a very relaxing weekend that I certainly needed! On friday I enjoyed some Underworld and Higlander on my new projector I bought myself as a 30th birthday gift, on saturday I enjoyed a Star Trek videoday with friends and trekkers and ended with a good hockeygame as Sweden crushed Canada and then on Sunday I slept late, enjoyed a (disappointing) Formula 1 race at O’Learys with both of my sisters and finished with another hockeygame as Sweden got crushed by the US of A. All in all – GREAT WEEKEND!
Phew, that was one hectic weekend! Even though I wasn’t THAT involved with all the happenings during the SweCon it still felt like it! When we dropped off Tim Russ & Co. at the airport we just breathed a sigh of relief – it was finally over! And ofcourse I have some pictures thanks to my good buddy Ricki! Head over to My Pictures and scroll down to SweCon 2004″ I should be able to scan the signed pic with me and Tim Russ by tomorrow. Meanwhile, take a look at some new pictures I just added from my trip to Rome! And these pictures are taken by Ricki that was also “accidentally” in Rome at the time.
Now I actually have an excuse for not doing shit here on the site! For the past week I’ve done stuff perparing for the Swecon 2004 – the first swedish Star Trek convention with the first official Star Trek visit. Tim Russ, the guy who plays Tuvok on “Voyager” is in town for the convention which, to Star Trek in Sweden, is HUGE! And what do I do? Except for miscellanous stuff that I always do for Stockholm Trekkers I have been given the title “The Offical Driver of Swecon 2004”. So yeap, I picked the guy, his girlfriend and her parents up at the airport and I’m driving him to and from the hotel, which is actually fun and a good chance to just chat about non-Star Trek stuff. And today I had to do something that was actually something alot of people think I can pull off easily – bodyguard duty. When we were going from the hotel, 4 hours after he’d been on an national radio show promoting it, he had some fans down in the lobby at the hotel so I had to muscle up a bit. Never thought I’d be the bastard that pushes people away that just wants an autograph but the dude made it really clear he didn’t want to be bothered when he wasn’t at the convention so if any of those people are reading this – sorry!
This weekend had all the ingredients to be absolutely awesome! Star Trek Voyager DVD box #1, two new Enterprise episodes, a Stockholm Trekkers day which usually means I get to see friends I haven’t seen in a while, the hockey championship finals, a Formula 1 race and beautiful weather. So what happened? I forgot how many times I’ve seen the first season of Voyager so I already knew all the episodes by heart, I haven’t had time to see the new Enterprise episodes, one of my best friends came down with the flu and couldn’t make it to the Stockholm Trekkers day, I got a speeding ticket, we “lost” the hockey final to Canada (again!), the F1 race was pretty boring since noone can come close to the Ferrari’s – and to put in the biggest blow – my grandmother passed away. Now I’m gonna go to bed, forget all about this weekend and try to deal with that last part.
But atleast the weather kicked ass!
How are you enjoying seeing the war unfold on your TV screens at home? I had a very weird weekend. On Friday it was Star Trek movie premiere, dinner, then bed, then on Saturday it was F1 qualifying and then… 6 hours of Sky News / CNN watching. Then off on a date, bed early then up early on Sunday to watch the F1 race. Then after that, at about 9 am, when I was tucked down in my soffa I… didn’t do anything but watch Sky News / CNN for about 12 hours! Beginning with the early seige of Umm Qasr and ending with Pentagon breifing following the POW tapes. And it really felt like this war didn’t really exist in any real place, it was just in my TV! Really weird feelings. But it was happening, like that POW tape showed. The two funniest incidents all day was after the morning seige when they interviewed Nick Lerma, the big-ass seargent with plenty of toys. Testosterone squared! Then seeing some Iraqi soldiers hunting two imaginary downed allied airman in the shores of Baghdad. It shouldn’t be funny, it was a blatent disregard of the Geneva convention about the treatment of POW’s, but it was funny seeing them go on for two hours while seeing the “No coalition airplanes missing!” sign at the bottom. And it kinda reminded me about “Allo, allo” with the search for the missing british airmen 🙂
But with that tape on the evening it all ended with a big downer. Once again disregarding Geneva conventions about POW’s but it was really… sad seeing these totally lost techs who just took a wrong turn… and it was something emotional about this one quote:
I didn’t come here to shoot, I came here to fix things.
Here’s hoping it ends well…
I’m one of those people who can take, and actually appreciate, being proven wrong. I don’t know if it’s because of my “I have to constantly learn/discover new things”-drive or what. Most recently it was UIP who proved me wrong! UIP is a movie distribution company here in Sweden. They distribute movies for Paramount amongst other. And Paramount make the Star Trek movies. So we have to be friends with UIP. And last weekend we got a preview screening of the new Star Trek movie, “Nemesis”. That was a pretty nice surprise, but what wasn’t such a nice surprise was the bad quality of the translation in the subtitles. It was pretty obvious that guy wasn’t a trekker. So we complained about it, but so what – what’s done is done, right?… wrong! They invited 3 of us to come to their office and go through the movie and correct everything we felt was wrong and to suggest what should be there instead. I never thought they’d do something like this, I was under the impression that that kind of thing didn’t happen… “re-subtitle a movie just because the die hard fans don’t like it”… but it did. Now of course they have to live up to the challenge and actually change it before the real premiere.
Another nice surprise I got, this one also in the realm of flexibility, was when I was putting together a server for one of our customers. I’ve been tinkering inside computers for about 13 years now, and there are some facts you just have to accept – changing/adding CPU’s is a mess, changing/adding power supplies is a mess and putting in hard drives is easier said than done. The computer manufacturers have put in a lot of work to make it easier for us, but I’ve never been impressed by it. Until yesterday when I was putting this HP/Compaq 380 server together. I was suppose to add a secondary CPU, add a redudant power supply, insert 3 extra fans and put in 5 hard drives. Guess how long that took?… less than 15 minutes. And everything worked right off the bat. So I guess I owe a big thank you to some engineers at HP/Compaq for thinking a couple of extra steps – nice!
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 🙁
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 where 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)
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.
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 years of 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…
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”).
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.
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.