After a 4 year hibernation, the blog once again show subtle signs of life.
Just wanted to see if this thing still works, and it actually does. A bunch of updates available of course, but they all applied cleanly and the site is now updated to the latest and greatest version of everything! Even updated the ‘about’ page and some broken links, so everything should be as good as new.
Now, hang tight for the next update, it probably wont take more then 3 or 4 years! 🙂

Does friendship really have to wither and die as time goes by, or does a good friend simply transform into an old friend?

Some friends, it seems, requires constant attention.
If you do not call, you are no longer a friend.
If you do not visit, you are no longer welcome.
If you do not tell them about everything that happens in your life, you no longer have any right to know what goes on in theirs.
These are the friends that you might lose if you leave town for a while, get a new job or make a new acquaintance. These are the friends that will not be there when you need help, because you have not helped them first. These are the friends that will pretend that they do not know you when you meet them 5 or 10 years later.
These are the friends I can live without.

I have other friends. Friends that I almost never see, never hear from. I do not blame them for this. They do not call me, just as I do not call them. Still, I consider them friends, many of them even good friends. We do not have the urge to keep close track on each others life that most people seems to have today. They live their life, and I live mine. I know that they are out there, and I know that they will be there for me if I need them, just as I would be there for them. That is enough for me, to know that they exist. I do not constantly have to call them, visit them or hear from them. If they have something they think I should know, I’m sure they will let me know. If they need a helping hand or just wants to talk, they know where to find me. They do not force me to talk, but if I have something to say, they will listen.These are the friends that will still be my friends, even if we do not meet for 10, 15 or even 20 years. Hell, even if we were to never meet again, I would still consider them friends the day I die.
These are the only friends I need.

Why do I even bother having a blog, when I obviously dont use it?
I guess its a status thing. Everyone else has one, so I must have one.

Anyway, life goes on. Right now Im just trying to make it ’till the weekend, when my vacation starts. A much needed and well deserved 3 week vacation. Dont have much planned, a few weekends with family and friends but otherwise the schedule is open, like it should be on a vacation. Just spending time with the girlfriend, doing whatever we want. I so need that right now…

Dont know what else to tell ya. Work still sucks, Im still looking for something better to do, the weather is changing on what seems like an hourly basis, I have soccer matches coming up on Sunday and Tuesday, I want coffee but Im to lazy to go get some, and I still suck at blogging. Thats about it.

For a guy that rarely uses his blog, I sure put in a lot of time working on it.

Completely new blogsystem, new design and a shitload of new features. The site is a mix of php, javascript and AJAX technologies, so it might not work perfectly in every browser. Firefox however has no problems with it, and thats all I care about.
Some of the entries from the old blogsystem has been imported, but the comments are gone. To much work to convert them to the new system, I dont think anyone reads them anyway.

Due to public demand, this blog also supports RSS, so now you can subscribe and be notified every time I update, which (judging on past behavior) will not happen often. You can even subscribe to individual entries to be notified when someone leaves a comment on that particular post.

Went to a Foo Fighters concert saturday. They rocked!
Last performance of the tour and they were recording the show for a live DVD so they gave a little extra I guess. They played in Hovet, Stockholm, which is not the biggest arena, but atleast it was completely sold out. Really nice lightshows and a moderately drunk David Grohl made it totally worth the money. Of course, the swedish newspapers had a problem with an adult person performing intoxicated and even drinking beer on stage. This is sweden after all, god forbid someone would be allowed to have fun. F*ck ’em, I say. He can drink all the beer he wants as long as he can do his job, and atleast this time he delivered a hell of a show so I have no complaints.
Spent the rest of the weekend in stockholm with old friends, and even meet some new ones. I also had to endure the company of some people that I have no desire whatsoever to make friends with, but I guess thats the way it goes.

OK, I surrender. I will answer your f-ing questions!

Nobody that reads blogs can have missed the “4 Answers” terror that has hit the internet. Every blogger and their dog has to answer a bunch of stupid questions, and then encourage everyone they know to do the same.
I usually hate this kind of things, but since people seem to be seriously offended when I ignore their chain-letters (yes, for real…offended and really, really pissed) here it is…

Four jobs I’ve had in my life
Network technician (current job)
PA systems (sound and light installations)
Lumberjack (in lack of a better word for it – I used to build timberhouses)
Support technician (yupp, I answered the phone when stupid people called)

Four movies I can watch over and over
Sin City (Its a piece of art)
Starship Troopers (I dont care what people say, this flick RULES!)
LOTR or Starwars (Thats like 11 movies combined, so I let it count as two)

Four places I have lived
Ljusdal (still there, still hate it)
Hamra (I wasnt born there, but it will always be home for me)
Stockholm (Lots of different parts, so I let it count as two)

Four TV shows I love to watch
Friends (Still makes me laugh)
Top Gear (Fast cars *and* british humour, whats not to like?)
24 (Cant say I love it, but it kills time)
Discovery (Its not a show, its a channel, I know)

Four places I have been on vacation
Funäsdalen (1 week every year, just me and my sled)
London (boring as hell, I will not go there again)
Spain (There was a big beach, thats about all I remember)
Amsterdam (Great place, nice people)

Four websites I visit daily
IDG.se (IT news, gotta stay updated)
bsdnews.com (Best software in the world)
news.com (its..uhh…news?)
this blog (I think you know the URL)

Four of my favorite foods
Pizza (Its pizza, damnit!)
Hamburgers (Its hamburgers, damnit!)
Lasagna (Me and Garfield)
Mum’s cooking

Four places I would rather be right now
Somewhere else (Not answering stupid questions!)
Hamra (Where my sled is)
Stockholm (Drinking with ma’ homies)
Funäsdalen (Where me and my sled should be)

I watched something quite fascinating, and at the same time totally hilarious, today.
A friend of mine bought a new cordless phone, with all the latest bells and whistles and then some. This phone has, among a zillion other things, the totally annoying habit of actually telling you the number of who is calling. A weird robotic voice reads you the number of the caller…that is, if the caller has not chosen to hide his or hers number. It took a while to figure out all the features, but once installed it worked like a charm.

Later, me, my friend and a third acquaintance, lets call him M, was just hanging in front of the TV. M is a bit older then us and technically illiterate to the extent of having trouble with microwave-ovens.
Suddenly, a loud beep followed by the robotic voice loudly declaring “UNIDENTIFIED CALLER!” scared the shit out of us. I looked at M, who was closest to the phone. M in turn was looking in the direction of where the phone was with an extremely confused look in his face, as if he was trying to pinpoint the source of this sudden outburst of verbal information. A few seconds passed, and M slowly started to relax and leaned back into the couch again, while all the time keeping a watchfull eye on the phone. *BEEP* “UNIDENTIFIED CALLER” the phone stated again, this time a bit louder as if trying to really make a point here. Judging by his size, I would never have guessed that M would be able to react and move at such a great speed. Within a split second, M had thrown himself forward and was now flying over the sofa. While sliding head first across the coffee-table, he rolled over on his back and grabbed the phone while sliding pass it. Still in momentum, he slides over the edge of the table, and while airborn he twists his body around and throws the phone across the room, all in one swift move. As M lands with a big *thump* on the floor me and my friend, both starring in awe, follow the phone trough the air and out trough an open window.
– “What the…” I mumble as Im trying to grasp this somewhat unexpected chain of events.
– “YOU THREW MY PHONE OUT THE WINDOW, YOU FREAKING MORON!” my friend interupts me.
– “Of course I did, it was talking. PHONES SHOULD NOT TALK! …unless…there is someone else in the other end talking in *another* phone, and the phone here repeats what they say…then it might be ok…I think…”. M says as he stands up from the floor and brushes the dust off his clothes.
– “But this phone talks when someone ca…” I say, but instead of finishing the sentence I decide to hold back my friend who is charging across the livingroom aiming for M’s face by swinging a 2 liter coke-bottle over his head.
– “I suspected it was the phone the first time something talked, but I was not sure so I decided to forget and forgive…” M says while taking a step back to avoid a fatal blow from the bottle. “But then, it did it again…so I killed it!” he says, now safely out of reach from the coke-swinging maniac furiously trying to break free from my grip.

My friend lives on the third floor.
The phone survived (despite M’s best effort to assure the opposite) but the display is severely cracked, the casing is scratched, a big piece of the top right corner is missing, and the robotic voice doesnt quite have the same tone of authority anymore. In fact, it sounds more like a broken radio submerged under water in a big metal tube.
M survived too, despite my friends attempts to make him share the phones ill-deserved fate. M now hides on a top-secret location under false name, but he says he is doing just fine and is not bothered by any talking phones. Any further explanation to his irrational behaviour has not been given, and knowing M, I doubt we will ever get one.

I suck at this blog thing. I really do. I did think I would do better this time, since this is actually my third blog (the first two died after several months of inactivity). Judging by the posting frequency lately, it seems as this will go the same way. But for now, its still here, so I guess a post is due.

Spent the holidays at my parents place. Lots of good food, nice company and snow…which leads to snowmobiling, of course. Im kind of getting used to the performance of my sled now, so I have started looking at some more upgrades. Its a hell of a sled as it is, but I want more. A lot more. The only problem is that I have already spent a fortune on this sled, so there is not much left to do that hasnt already been done. Im trying to stay somewhat realistic, but its just to much damn fun. We’ll see, it just might turn out to be one of those never-ending projects…would be fun to see just how much you can actually get out of a snowmobile!
Other then snowmobiling, I frequented some of the regular hangouts where I grew up. It was nice to see some of my old friends again. I must say, not much has changed during the 10 years since I moved away. Same people, same places, same topics of discussion. Im not saying that its a bad thing, I actually felt right at home, but you would think the people living there would get bored. But they dont. Go figure.

The last few days have been less fun. Im fighting a hell of a cold, and so far, the cold is winning. Fever, sore throath, cough, running nose, you name it I have it. Havent left the appartment all week, with the exception of a brief appearance at work monday morning. I seriously hate being sick, it sucks!

Yeehaa, first run with the sled this weekend.
To be honest, it wasnt really enough snow to properly support any kind of snowmobiling, but the ground was white and the throttlethumb was itching, so it had to suffice. Due to the lack of snow it was mainly open road and frozen lake driving, but damn it was fun.
Snowmobiles are designed to plow trough deep snow in offroad terrain while still delivering high speed and great manouveribility, so the performance on a hard packed and flat road is somewhat insane. The feeling of entering a corner at 170-180 km/h and just push the throttle a bit further and go sideways trough the bend is undescribable. Dangerous, yes, but wonderfull. Going flat out on the straights, maxing out well above 200km/h with the roaring of the wind so loud you cant even hear the engine has to be the definition of freedom. The skies rattling on the hard ice, the howling sound of the track spinning insanely fast just inches below you, the sudden rush of adrenaline when you feel the entire sled losing its grip and start to slide sideways, closer and closer to the banks of snow on the side of the road, and the total feeling of success when you manage to break the slide and just push on, faster and faster. The sensation of the road getting narrower, the feeling of riding in a tunnel, everything moving so fast its hard to focus on anything but the road straight ahead. Its living in its purest form!
Usually, Im not even a speed-freak kind of guy. I enjoy the more technical kind of driving, with jumps, fast acceleration, hard braking and quick turns. But sometimes, just once in a blue moon, I like to break a few laws and set the sled free on a few miles of open road, just letting it breath and really push its limits.
Call me crazy, but I think the sled enjoys it just as much as I do.

A while ago, I joined one of these online “communities” that seems to pop up everywhere these days. Now, a few weeks later, a decent bunch of people have added me to their “friends” list, and believe it or not, but the majority of them has described me as “cool”.
I have a few “intelligent”, some “rebel”, but the clear majority is leaning towards cool!

I have never considered myself cool.
Intelligent I can understand, I know Im above average. Rebel is not a word I would use to describe myself, allthough I do have a tendency to break a few rules from time to time so I guess I can buy that. But cool?

Cool is guys like Travolta in Pulp Fiction or maybe Bruce Willis in Whole Nine Yards. I may have a similar haircut as Bruce at the moment, but thats about all the similarity I can think of. What the hell makes me cool?

Dont know why Im complaining, I guess you could be called a lot worse then cool, but it just surprised me. I would never have guessed that I was considered cool by people that actually know me.