I’ve got a new definition of contrast for you : A dolphin, looking happy and as cute as only dolphins can, brings a smile to my face. Right before it swims back into the Gulf in search of mines… I like contrasts. I’m the kind of guy that’ll order peperoni and pineapple on a pizza! Most of my clothes are black and white. And it’s one of the reasons I loved the movie Leon!
One of the best ways to attract a member of the female species is to show off wealth, preferably by buying expensive stuff. Stuff that does the same thing that stuff that cost half as much! It sounds like a very shallow thing to say, but it’s true. If I was driving around in a Ferrari wearing Gucci clothes and Rayban sunglasses I’d have a hell of an easier time getting a date! (please note that I’m differentiating between “getting a marry-able (I love making up words) woman” and “simply getting a date”).
And now it seems Debenham’s here in Stockholm is going to cash in on that idea! They are gonna have a night open only for singles! Seriously, only singles allowed! So you’ll be cruising around there like in a singles bar, only difference is that this forces you to buy those expensive stuff to show off and since there’s no alcohol involved there’s even less of a chance for people like me! (make of that what you will)
But I’m not bitter, I’ve already got a date (Date # 2) for this weekend.
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…
Warning : This update will be one of the deepest ones all year.
About a year ago (April 3rd) I made an update about me and my so called brother not getting along. This seems to be a recurring theme between us, every now and then we just get upset at each other, then after a week or so it’s business as usual. But now it appears it’s over.
The reason that “so called brother” is there is because he’s not really related to me at all, but it’s been kinda “brother I never had” thing there. But the big difference between being “so called” and actually being related is that with relatives you a) have no choice but to forgive and forget and b) you have almost an infinite amount of patience. But he’s not really related to my, so in this instance my patience has totally run out. My source of forgiveness is depleted. No matter how much you get along with someone, no matter how fun you can have at times, is it really worth it when most of the time you’re disappointed, feel ignored and taken for granted? The most recent incident was 2 weeks ago when we had agreed he’d come over to my place on the friday, we’d do the usual “watch a movie, grab a pizza, play some games”-guy stuff, he’d stay over and then we’d go out to my parent’s place over the saturday/sunday and do the usual family-thing there and watch the F1 premiere. Sounds like the greatest weekend, so I warm it up by taking friday off from work to enjoy it even more. Come friday afternoon he let’s me know he’s going out on a date with this chick so he might be late. That’s always an acceptable excuse to change plans so fine. At 8 he let’s me know that his date is over but he’s gonna stay a while and party but he’ll be up later. At around 11 he decides that “nah, I’ll skip it, c ya tomorrow”. So there I was, sitting alone in my apartment on a friday night, pretty disappointed. But even worse was that my (real) sis AC had to take the train home – ALONE – after a friday
night in Stockholm. She wanted to crash at my place, but there wasn’t suppose to be room so she took the train. Alone. Which didn’t please her hubby Paul. When I tried telling my intoxicated friend that his decision to just change the plans and the consequences that he didn’t think about, knew or maybe even ignored. As usual he can’t take any criticism and said “fine, I’m not coming out this weekend at all!” , as if to punish me. At the time I was so pissed at him it was a blessing for both of us that we weren’t gonna see each other the day after. And if he did it to punish me, it must have meant that he didn’t really want to do it, he just agreed to it to please me? (which sounds like a good thing, but it really isn’t nice to pretend to want to do something, or like something, only to please someone else!) And it again proved my point that he didn’t really think his spontaneous decisions through because by not coming out to my parents he made everyone, my mother, my father, my sister and her sons disappointed.
They were looking forward to meeting him again, they had even bought his favorite alcoholic drink. But to punish me he wasn’t gonna go. I thought this was just a spontaneous outburst that was a bit influenced by the consumed alcohol and come saturday I pretended like that last thing was never said. But he totally ignored me and wouldn’t reply to my SMS’s, no matter how provocative they were (and that last one should’ve made anyone reply “you sick as****e!”). So fine, I’m way more immature and hence better at the “silent treatment” than he is. Now, two weeks have passed. And guess what… I hadn’t noticed his absence. That tells me I was used to not talking to him that much in the first place. Maybe later I’ll start missing him, missing going to the TG Lan party that I was looking forward to or something. But for now… hadn’t noticed…
I’m not gonna be so self diluted as to think that I was the most important thing in his life or that I had any priority over anything else in his life. He had a date with a chick, great! I encourage that totally! He felt like going out with his friends in Södertälje, fine! Although I don’t understand how partying in Södertälje is possible, but fine. I would have been totally ok with him calling me on thursday saying “let’s totally skip everything, I got other plans!” – fine! And if it had been once in a month thing – fine! But for the past two years it’s become more frequent that he just skipped some plans we’d made up for something else that had come in the way. But the worst part is that most of the time he’d never let you know. I’d go on my merry way thinking we were gonna meet somewhere and do something, then have to call him and check why he’s not there and find out he changed his plans. That’s f*cking annoying. And I know that my circle of friends is pretty limited right now, but what’s the point of having a friend out of habbit if all that happens is that you get disappointed, upset and hurt?! And everytime you try to tell him how you feel he just get mad, angry and yells the meanest thing he can think off.
So right now, that’s pretty off. But as I said, it seems to be a recurring theme for us to do this. Right now I figure the ball is in his court. I can’t change who I am, I can’t change that I don’t like the way he is sometimes…
I wonder if this place, the world, would be a better place if everyone started telling the truth and be honest all the time. Or maybe even for a day? Would the world be a better place? I seriously doubt it. As a matter of fact, I think it’d be chaos. Total chaos. Politics aside (lying /exaggerating/spinning is a part of politics!), just everyday life would be impossible. If I were to say what I was thinking I’d probably be out of a job, not to mention sued for “sexual harassment” (as I understand it, even telling a woman she’s the sexiest you’ve ever seen with your own eyes can be labelled as “sexual harassment” (and I work at a lawfirm right now so I’m not gonna push it). As I was writing this a friend of mine sent over a link to a pretty interesting list. “Things guys wish girls knew“.
There is one or two things there that I don’t fully agree with (like # 26), but it’s a pretty interesting list. And if you think about it, what IF girls knew all those things? Would relationships be easier or would they just find other enigmatic things to argue over? Don’t ask me though, I haven’t been in a man-woman relationship for over a year. But who knows after this weekend…
Perhaps it’s just because I have this incredible need to fill my head with trivial and/or useless information, but I love VH1 “Pop-up Videos”. I think the show is absolutely hilarious! You can always count on them to combine relevant trivia with something useful and then to finish off with something funny. Favorite so far is the pop-up version of “The Stroke”!
And speaking of irrelevant trivia – have you noticed the t-shirt in the background in Kelly Osbourne’s version of “Papa Don’t Preach” that says “Italians Do It Better”? I’ve always thought it was a homage to Madonna, and the fact that she actually did that song alot better than Kelly. But in the pop-up video to Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” they pretty much zoom in on that T-shirt that Madonna is actually wearing in the video. So it was an intended homage, just not the way I thought. These are the kinds of irrelevant trivia I fill my head with. And that’s why I stand a chance at Trivial Pursuit.
I hope everybody, atleast everyone in Sweden, saw the Melodyfestival finale last night? I actually liked it, especially the song that won. But the biggest reason I liked it was the hosts. Mark and Jonas. I don’t know what it is about Mark Levengood, but he’s got that Zen-like aura that Moby has. Just totally cool. And Jonas is absolutely hilarious! And both of them are pretty good at making fun of themselves and doesn’t take themselves too seriously, a quality I like in people. Although Jonas could have done a better job of actually hosting the thing instead of just reading from a script, it was still one of the best ones I’ve seen. And let’s just hope the Euro-wide finale is as fun as it was last year!
A new “Absolute”-album has come out. If you don’t know what they are, it’s a collection of hit tracks with a common theme. Like “Absolute Country” or “Absolute Movies”. This one should have been named “Absolute Crap”. It’s a collection of # 1 hits between 1995 and 1999. Britney Spears, Paradiso, Spice Girls, Vengaboys, Eiffel 65, E-Type and so on and so on and most of it is, what I consider, garbage music. Music without any distinct sound or anything. But I say most of it – Depeche Mode, Robert Miles and Cecilia Vennersten is also on it, but that’s simply not good enough for a music collection with only # 1 hits!… or do I have a bad taste in music?
But I’m really digging Shaggy’s “Ode to women”-song. And video. Who can argue with the first line “So amazing how this world was made, I wonder if GOD is a woman”, especially if you’re a Kevin Smith-fan.
I just read something that … well, in all honestly I shouldn’t be surprised… but I was… go over to CNN and read this… I’m at a loss for words…
I just read in the paper that the very pregnant Catherine Zeta Jones is going to have an ambulance standing by outside ready to go during the Oscars. And they called it “diva-like” behavior. That, combined with what I was talking about yesterday, made me think – do rich and successful people get more eccentric when they become rich and successful, or does it just show much more do to the increase of resources they can put into it? Or are they just normal people, with normal behavior, that is just blown out of proportion by the media? In this specific case I think it’s #2. ‘Cause any normal parent in the world, human or any other animal, would use all their resources to protect their offspring. If that means fighting off a wolfpack or paying to have a private ambulance stand by just in case, the basic animal instinct is still the same, to protect the offspring. But that’s just in this case ofcourse, then we have J-Lo’s weird obession with white-ness that is just beyond me…
Another topic of conversation today is Michael Jackson. After the recent documentaries about him and how he chooses to live people have really dissed him.
True, the guy seems eccentric. True, some of the stuff is weird. True, it’s not normal to share your bed with children. But come on, can’t we find anyone who’s actually doing something illegal and dig into him/her instead? Like everyone in showbiz doing drugs, or politicians trying to evade tax or something? After all b.s that’s been written about Jackson it’s hard to take anything seriously. From that ogygen tank story back in the 80’s to that Voodoo-ritual he went through to have some people offed… yeah, right… I’m not one to accept anything written anywhere to be fact. The only one undeniable fact is that the dude has made awesome music in the past 20 years! Although the most recent music hasn’t been that much to my liking, the amount of great music forgives any kind of eccentricities (that one is for the people who say my spelling sux!). Until he’s actually tried and convicted in any court, it’s all b.s to me. Let’s quote the great man himself, from “They Don’t Care About Us”:
Tell me what has become of my rights? Am I invisible because you ignore me?
Your proclamation promised me free liberty, now I’m tired of bein’ the victim of shame
They’re throwing me in a class with a bad name, I can’t believe this is the land from which I came
You know I do really hate to say it, the government don’t wanna see.
But if Roosevelt was livin’, he wouldn’t let this be, no, no
I know I’ve been avoiding the biggest world issue today by totally ignoring the Iraq-issue. But I’m actually not sure on which side I’m on – pro or con. The pacifist in me says it’s wrong, war only leads to death & misery and there’s gotta be another way. The anti-Bush in me says that’s it’s partially his fault, he’s painted himself in a very tight corner so he can’t NOT go to war. Then we have the fair-player inside me that hates what Saddam is doing, pushing the limit of what he can get away with and playing everyone against the states and cooperating at the very last minute and b.s like that. But going along my rule of conduct that “Don’t expect anything from someone else you can’t deliver yourself” I’m almost on the side of Iraq. ‘Cause think about it, what has Saddam done that the US hasn’t?
They are supporting terrorist. Probably, but so did the US during the Soviet vs. Afghanistan war, as well as Iraq vs. Iran war and they’re still supporting the anti-Saddam rebels in Iraq.
He’s killing his own citizens. True, but so does US only they call it “capital punishment” and Bush is a big supporter of that. They try to develop nuclear weapons. So did the US 50 years ago.
They have weapons of mass-destruction. The US has the biggest arsenal of them all! They refuse to inventory their weapons arsenal and cooperate with the arms inspectors. And exactly what would the US say if someone tried to inventory their arsenal? Iraq isn’t cooperating with the UN. Neither is the US right now, and have they yet paid off their huge debt to the UN? Have they signed on the UNICEF resolution about children’s rights?
So I really think they should be trying to solve their own problems instead of trying to start a war noone wants and they can’t afford. But that’s just me.
Today, 24 reminded me of why I started loving that show! You might remember a couple of months ago when I got so hooked by it I downloaded it all from the Net. Well, when the second seasons started, the first thought was “how are they gonna top that!?”. And at first they didn’t. At first it was really bad and the entire sub-plot of Kim hiding in dumpsters again felt very old. But today’s episode, #15 (10pm-11pm), was absolutely amazing. Very, very well written, very well executed and intercut between the different people talking with everyone, and at the end… watching that bomb go off was just … frightening … and the president talking about going to war, given the current political climate in the world …
(hope I didn’t spoil the second season two much, but saying that the bomb goes off doesn’t say much!)
How come that as soon as a person hints at having something really bad in their baggage that they’d “rather not talk about”, that makes them 10 times more interesting? I don’t know if that’s just me or what, perhaps I’ve lived such a sheltered life that I can’t really complain, but as I was watching the “oh my god, I can’t believe this fairy tale” girls on “Joe Millionaire” I started noticing the woman who made the least ruckus. And then during one of their dinners she went on the defensive that she’d rather not talk about this and that and being totally different than everyone else and she very quickly moved up to my top spot for that show’s winner ’cause she was just so down to earth and unpretencious!… and after seeing some more episodes of it it’s looking pretty good for her 🙂
Another thing about “Joe Millionaire” I really like is the editing! I’m a pretty good observer and obviously the producer and editor was as well because it’s really nicely put together. But unfortunately it suffers from something alot of shows like this suffer from – extended and extensive amounts of replays. Like before a commercial break we see what will happen in the next segment and after the break we saw what happened in the previous one. It’s like they only have 30 minutes of material but an hour to fill. And that’s kind of annoying.
And I’ll end this with a slam-dunk, “not so bright”-metaphore – “He’s not extraneously intellectual“. LOL! If that’s not spinning, I don’t know what is. 🙂