Don’t you love a good biased blame-game? I’m ofcourse talking about the F1 race yesterday. A year ago two cars on Michelin tyres had accidents at high speeds in the F1 race at Indianapolis. And then in Belgium they also had some trouble and Jenson crashed out att 300+ KPH. And this year it’s been pretty obvious that Michelin tyres have been closer to the edge than Bridgestone and where told to watch it a few weeks ago. And this weekend started with two Michelin tyre failures and Michelin put out a press release saying they couldn’t guarantee the safety of the drivers running on their tyres if certain steps weren’t taken. Something I guess you have to do when you’re in the states and people suing each other left and right. And that’s where facts stops and the blaming game begins. Everyone is blaming everyone, but the most surprising statement was from Ove Andersson, a guy with decades of motorracing experience. He laid the blame at Ferrari’s feet since they opposed the idea of building a chicane to adapt the circuit to the failing tyres, something which really wasn’t up to them to decide in the first place. And it’s not really their fault Michelin didn’t have the right rubber or spares. So that’s why it surprised me. But oh, and he works for Toyota, the team that had two crashes so that explains it. Then the FIA is blaming Michelin for not supplying appropriate tyres. And Michelin is blaming FIA for not being flexible and allowing a change of tyres or building the chicane. And the racers just wanna race and the fans just wanna see a race. So in that sense it’s surprising to see the teambosses, FIA reps and all other people involved in this mega-million sport behaving like kids blaming each other and trying to out-do eachother resulting in all Michelin cars coming into the pits expecting the race to be stopped and the FIA to bend the rules in 11th hour. But nope. So I quote David Coulthard – “reality is mature adults couldn’t find a solution that would let us go racing”. Here, here…
Boy am I having one of the laziest weekends ever! I even sat a new record for laziest maneuver ever today – as I was refilling my coca cola glass I dropped the cap. Instead of bending down to pick it up, I took the cap from an empty bottle right beside me. Just how lazy is that? And I’m writing this sitting out on my balcony, blazing sun, cold cola and a computer in my lap. Nice!
But I guess I better get a move on since I’m suppose to be at O’Learys in a few hours to watch the Indy F1 race. If there is gonna be a race that is.
Maybe I should clarify what I said about work yesterday. As computer tech jobs go this is one of the best jobs to have (short of the one I had at the state department) and it’s definitely the best place to work at. But somehow it’s gone from the “yippi, another day at Vinge, admiring all the gorgeous women and occasionally answer the phone and help someone with some lame computer problem”-attitude I had when I worked here for over a year back in 2002 and 2003 to “oh do I have to?”. But I’m still admiring the women. And answering the phone 🙂
After I donated blood about three weeks ago I didn’t get a single headache (except for June 3rd, for obvious reasons) but during the weekend it came back 🙁 And now I don’t know just how much of this is psychological or physical! Because during these 2 weeks I was fine, didn’t get headaches, social, updated this blog, online chatting with friends and stuff, but now after it’s back I’m getting this depression again when I get up, go to work, work enough not to get fired and can’t wait to get home and when I do I just crash in my couch and can’t motivate myself to do anything more than I really have to. So it could all be me going through a depression right now – only problem is I don’t know what I have to be depressed about. Except this headache that just won’t quit. Next week I’m having a wisdom tooth removed to eliminate it from the equation and if that doesn’t help I’m off to see a neurologist. But I’m still hoping the Doc is right and it’s just something temporary that should go away by itself since all tests show that I’m as healthy as I should be.
Am I the only one who’s so sick and tired of this Brad & Angelina BS? You can’t do a quick newsscan without reading something about them somewhere, are they or aren’t they. Who gives a crap?! Nobody that I wanna know cares either way or wanna read it so shut up. And that includes me!
First real day of summer in Stockholm today! I was walking my normal route from work to the train station and it warm, sunny, alot of people outside, a real party atmosphere on “Plattan” and truckloads of newly graduated students really made me feel all good and warm, and ofcourse saying “those were the days” in the back of my head…
Perhaps I was a bit too harsh the other day because when I tried thinking about something more appropriate to celebrate as our national day I came up blank. We’ve never been occupied or conquered, have we? And we haven’t had any good revolution (let’s not mix “bloodbath” with “revolution”) here either. So there really isn’t anything more swedish to celebrate than Gustav Vasa I guess, which makes me sad ’cause it makes sweden sound dull. We weren’t even in any of the WW…
For the first time our national day, June 6th, is a national holiday which means everyone got another day off from work/school to celebrate… ??.. Gustav Vasa’s ascension to the throne in 1523. Yeap, that feels very relevant today, doesn’t it? I mean, other countrie’s national days are for something huge, usually some independance day, revolution or the founding of the country in question. And most of them are atleast in modern times, but we have our’s for a thing that happened 500 years ago! Maybe it’s just me and my total lack of interest in swedish royalty history (I always say something crazy at those Trivial Pursuit questions asking which king did what), but I think we should have some national day on a date that actually means something to me today. But I’m all for any chance to have a full day off from work!
I’m SO not 20 anymore! When my 30th birthday approached I was thinking about what kinda party I should throw, if any. The problem was that my main partying is gonna be at Silverstone in a month and that’s setting me back financially. So I didn’t wanna spring for a huge party like my house warming party, and we have already done that finnish cruise thing for my 25th. So this time I just told people “I’ll be at Dubliners (a pub one block away from work) from 6, swing by if you can”. And they sure did! I think we counted 16 overall, gaming-buddies, old school friends, former and current collegues and family. Overall a really good night out and nice way to spend my 30th birthday! But the main event is in a month 🙂 But when I woke up this morning I had the worst headache ever and considering the past 6 months have been full of headaches, that’s saying quite alot!
This will be my last update as a 20-something guy. In 6 hours I’ll be a 30-something guy. So let us recap the past 10 years:
After 1 academically failed year at the University in Växjö, I moved back home, got a job I liked at great company. Got new friends, co-started a Trekker organization, started my home theater system, got an interest for Formula 1, got to go to Greece, got a promotion, got to go to Kenya. Moved to my own place (blasting housewarming party!). Got another promotion to the best job I’ve ever had (developing our e-commerce site), took a few trips on the party-boats over to Finland (another blasting party on my 25th birthday). Company went broke, got a drivers license, re-educated myself to pc techie, started working a little off and on at a lawfirm. Celebrated one sister’s 30th birthday in scotland, lost my best friend, got a job at the state department, travelled around the world, celebrated the other sister’s 30th birthday, visited Africa while suffering from salmonella and then got to go to Italy. Helped organize the first Star Trek Convention in sweden (ever) and spend a few days in the company of Tim Russ. Had a few lazy months as a consultant inbetween jobs. Finally got the boot and a headache that won’t go away and got a steady job at the lawfirm and bought the last piece for a home theater (projector)… and that brings us up to date.
Overall a good 10-year run I think. And to start my 30’s I’m gonna have a good get together tonight at The Dubliner tomorrow night (everyone’s invited) and then off to see the F1 race at Silverstone!
I hate being predictable. But right on time I’m having the predictable “where’s my life”-going thoughts that everyone has when they turn 30. Or is it “should have”? I’ve never had a problem with any of it, but here I am. And ofcourse it doesn’t help when speaking to an old collegue that just became a father (congrats Anton!), and other friends settling down and stuff. But I ain’t mad. It’s just a number 🙂
Over the past few days I’ve been corresponding with a person in the USA about some of the stuff I wrote in my essay-things a while back. “A while back” in this case is 2001. But since then I’ve done alot and seen alot and I realise that I was pretty naive and inexperienced when I wrote some of those a few years back. So to use the same cliché again – “if I knew then what I know now”. So I really should go through and update them. But I didn’t know people still read them!
I think I may very well be a hypochondriac. And thinking you’re a hypochondriac pretty much proves it, doesn’t it? I think I’ve gone through all kinds of theories behind this ever lasting headache, from simple wisdomtooth to tumor and I don’t know how many times I’ve killed myself with all deceases I’ve given myself! And today I woke up with pain in my abdomen, but that I just blame on my pills of iron I’m taking to make up for the blood donation the other day. But not after thinking my appendix was about to burst. As I said, hyponcriac alert! Is that the price you pay for watching too much ER?
One more reminder “all good things must come to an end” is Ferrari’s performance in F1 right now. Or lack thereof. It was bound to end and we’ve been spoilt with wins over the past 4 years. But it’s still fun to watch and read, especially when planet-f1.com writes stuff like this:
Jarno Trulli’s pass on Fisichella was a bit like sex for the first time: It was fumbly, it was awkward and embarrassing, but he knew he had to go through with it. It didn’t work out for him, but hey, we’ve all been there.
Another thing that works awesome with my home cinema is the Eurovision Song Contest. Usually it was just pretty fun to watch, but now it’s quiet an experience seeing it in 100″ and the thumping sound. And “thumping” is pretty accurate since every damn number had thumping drums all the time. Still think Hungary should’ve won. One of the things I enjoyed was all the BOOOING all the friends-voting got, like Scandinavian countries voting for eachother no matter how sucky the songs are. That’s usually just an accepted behavior, but now they got alot of boooooos 🙂
You know what I can’t get? Sunglasses for $500?? Exactly what do they do that the ones I buy ($20) don’t? I’m not a cheap guy, I paid extra for my projector because it had features and i/o ports that I needed so I’ll pay for something with more features and stuff. But sunglasses? They only have two features – fade and look cool. That’s it! So why would do people sell and buy glasses for $500??? I’ve never understood that. And since I go through 3-4 per year you can imagine why I only buy cheap ones.
I hate wanting to kick myself in the ass saying “if I knew then what I know now…”. I usually say it when thinking about how I hated school or something that’s a few years off, but in the past two days I’ve gone through my last two years of updates and reading all the stuff when I was travelling and all I have to say to myself is “if I knew then what I know now”. But “then” in this case is only two years ago. Which means I must’ve learnt alot of stuff in the past two years. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling so indifferent to my current job, cause let’s face it, you can’t beat travelling the world, staying for 2 weeks in every country, living in hotels, doing something you’re good at, eating at restaurants everyday, making tons of money and everything on the tax payers dollars.
(yes Ricki, I know!)
I invite everyone who thought that buying a new projector and stuff for $2.500 was a stupid idea to come on over to my apartment and see Flatley’s “Feet of Flames”. Wowsy how grand it looked at 100″. And it’s always a bitter reminder of my # 2 regret of my childhood – I shouldn’t have dropped out of dance school.
Well the past 24 hours have been really, really depressing! One of the things I hate about life is when good things end, which as everyone knows has to happen. Like when you get fired from your job and thus losing touch with alot of friends. Or when you’ve gotten used to travelling around the world and all of a sudden that ends. Well on friday night I finally saw the last episodes of “Babylon 5” (still one of the best written TV shows ever!) and the last two episodes are all about this, good things that come to an end. And today I saw the last episode of modern Star Trek. End of an era. For the first time since 1987 there won’t be a new Star Trek episode made for quite a while. And before I was ready to accept that, Sweden got knocked out of the world championship in one of the best games I’ve seen in a long, long time. So yeah, all good things still come to an end. But still, this was a very rewarding saturday.
Yesterday as I was walking along Kungsgatan I noticed a bunch of people putting up tents and stuff and forming a long line outside one of our biggest cinema’s, Rigoletto. To any normal average Joe this might’ve looked weird and stupid and made no sense what so ever. Not to me. To me it’s inspiring to see how this many people can be so dedicated to a movie saga that they’ll sleep on the streets just to be sure to get the tickets for the first showing of the new Star Wars movie. Other people may think it’s geeky and looooooser-style, but I respect it. If I didn’t have a job, if sweden was knocked out of the hockey championship and if I had a tent, I might have joined them. But nah, I’ll just wait ’til Monday when I can order the tickets online!