Andy's Playground

The Backup Drive 2008

2008-10-16T20:41:00.006+02:00

Doubt anyone will ever read this, considering how seldom I update this page (eg how many readers I probably have due to that), but I thought I'd just post a random issue before they shut this site down for me. If anyone does infact read this, please fire off an email, so I know if I should keep going. (andy@polarbearpodcast.com)

I want a new backup system for my studio and I don't know which way to go. I hesitate between getting myself a big-ass 2 TB drive where I can put everything but live dangerously, and a raid system that will not only do backup per say but also provide me with at least a sense of data security. Which ever way I choose I'm looking at an about 700-1000 USD investment.

So to help myself out I decided to ask my faithful listeners for a little aid. I haven't done this since I asked them to chip in for my US-rip that never happened, but that was over two years ago. After all I put out a show on a fairly regular basis all for free, which I love for the record, but it would be nice getting even just a little something for all the hours I have put into the show.

So I have asked my listeners to grab all spare change they have lying around the house and send it my way. In this way I hope to raise at least a few hundred dollars, which will be of GREAT help in the backup system investment.

What do you think? Is it OK for a podcaster to ask for money from his/her listeners if it happens once in a while like in this case, or am I automatically doomed for stepping away from the "podcasting is free" path?

Hopefully the "Backup Drive", as I have called it (whitty right?), will be recieved well by the listeners and that I can turn on the power switch to the new backup system before christmas!

Hope to hear from you all!

/ Andy

Back from Greece

2008-08-05T15:14:00.003+02:00

Greece turned out to be a very nice place, and we got home safe and sound even if the journey was made in the middle of the night!

One week in what might just bee one of the hottest places on earth. Or at least that was the way it felt as me and my daughter stayed in a little village called Gerani, on the north east coast of Crete, whish is an Island off the coast of Greece, right in the heart of the Mediteranian.

Not much to say more than that we had a great time, working on our tans, swimming in the pools and just kicking it, and that I might not be entirely cut out for charter travel, but I'll give it at least one more shot before I give up this very Swedish tradition of travel. Being moved around as a herd of cattle isn't exactly my idea of travelling, but on the up side is the much cheaper tickets so maybe I can learn to live with it. Eventually.

Photos from the trip is posted on my FaceBook page, which you can access if you are a FaceBook user. I will also post a few photos on my website for the podcast over at www.polarbearpodcast.com as soon as get time to do so.

I would like to extend my gratitude to the Cretan population for their enormous hospitality and I hope to be back there next year already if only I can manage to get Marie to get over her fear of flying.

Talk to you all soon, and don't miss episode 136 of the PBP where I talk a great deal about the trip we made, in reference to life in Sweden and how things are different in Greece. See the website for more information about how to listen to the show and subscribe!

/ Andy

Off to Greece

2008-07-25T18:54:00.003+02:00

Some might call it stupid, blogging about going away for a week, but since this only applies to myself and not the rest of the family I see no immediate threat in telling you about the trip I am going on, starting tomorrow.

It all began 4 years ago when I took my son, then 7 years old, to the USA to visit my parents, during the time when they were planning on retiring and becoming Florida residents in their late years. We had a lovely trip he and I, and it became one of those great memories for him, that he still talks about from time to time. The reason that I only took my son with me was that my daughter, then 5 years old, was a bit too young I thought to appreciate the long trip, plus I wasn't too confident in taking responsibility over two kids on a trip like that. It was the first trip I made on my own as a parent.

So my daughter stayed at home that time, but I promised her that I would do a similar trip with her when she was 7 years old. Now, things didn't quite turn out the way I had planned it. First off, my parents sold the house two years later, and decided to not become Florida Old People so our natural destination kind of disappeared. Secondly a lot of other things happened in my life that made it difficult to find a suitable time for a journey of that magnitude. I mean it's not like going on a weekend trip to London or Paris. You need to clear at least 10 days or preferably a fortnight in your schedule to pop over the pond.

But this year, when Marie and my vacations where planned and carved in stone we noticed that I would have an entire week all by myself when she had gone back to work, so suddenly I saw an opportunity to repay my debt to my daughter and take her on that trip.

Since one week is bit short to go all the way to the States I figured that a regular charter to Greece would be just what we both needed. So I set it all up, surprised her one afternoon in June with the news and here we are now, only a few hours away from maing the trip that she has been waiting for and longing for for over 4 years. I am so excited and I know she is too.

We are going to a little village called Platanias, on the Island of Crete, south east of the Greek main land. From what I heard it's a nice little place and it turns out that Marie was there when she was ounger together with her parents, which is kind of fun.

I will be sure to post more info about our trip as soon as we get home and hopefully together with a lot of pictures.

So as they say in Greece (if they speak english that is); See you on the other side!

/ Andy

Getting things together

2008-07-01T13:43:00.004+02:00

Just a quick post to promote my new website, and to tell you a little bit about why I've made it. Because it wasn't just on a whim.

The new site is called The Art of Andy and can be found on the internet (where else) through www.theartofandy.com. The point of the site is to gather all things I do on one site. It will work like a portal for all my crazy projects. I have noticed over the years that I have a lot of friends out there from different media, but very few people know of all the stuff I do, so in this way I can get people listening to my podcast to find my blogg, and people who follow me on Twitter to perhaps take interest in the book I'm writing etc.
I have devided the website into a few different categories, making it easier for you to check out what I am up to.

As of now I have the following categories:
• Writing - Here I will present all the books I intend to write, with possibility to order directly from the website. The first one coming up is STATIC, which will be released during the fall of 2008.
• Podcasting - Here I will present the various podcasting projects that I am involved in, foremost the Polarbear Podcast and Podcast Helsingborg. But there might be more stuff in the future.
• Blogging - Well, guess what. Your reading it right now! Plus I will add links to Twitter too eventually.
• Photography - I have started to take an interest in photography, and even if I am still a novice I thought I'd simply post my best work (according to myself) on this part of the website. Maybe I can attach some kind of commenting-system to that. We'll see.

So as you see the categories will be filling up and maybe I'll be adding more categories to as life takes me on more fascinating rides in the years to come. "Music" feels like something that will need to be added pretty soon!

I haven't yet figured out exactly how I am going to approach the site from a technical perspective, but I am sure that I will find a smart solution to that, any day now.

As of now, when I write this, the page is still in beta, so please bare with me and give me a few weeks to get everything in order, but please visit the site today if you want to and just check it out and put the website address in your memory. There will be a lot of creative things coming from that site in the future. Believe me!

/ Andy

David Gahan on top again!

2008-07-01T10:36:00.003+02:00

I know I haven't been very good at posting things here lately, but I've been very caught up in life (as usual), writing the book, which is soon to be done, and working. But I made a reflection today, on the musical side and I'd just like to share it with you all.

The lead singer of Depeche Mode, David Gahan, recently release his second solo album. The first one, Paper Monsters, didn't do so well. Not in my taste anyway. The second one however, titled Hour Glass, is really good. I would even go as far as to say that it's better that the last two Depeche Mode albums, which I think weren't as good as I had expected from the Depeche Mode I know and love. But I have to say that Playing the Angel (the latest DM album) was much better than Exciter, which became the "never listened album" for me. I just can't take it.

So to sum it up, I think David Gahan's new album Hour Glass is really good. I would recommend you to buy it if you like this type of music, and you can be expecting a bit more Depeche Mode sound on this album compared to the more drunk-rock sounding Paper Monsters.

Now, I have to get back to work and try to produce a few more pages on the magazine I'm currently working on. I really need some vacation now!

/ Andy

Equality in Sweden

2008-06-03T16:14:00.004+02:00

Nowhere in the world is the word "equality" so used in debates and newspapers as in Sweden. The reason? We have the most equal social system in the world, right? Or do we???

First of all we have to look at equality in a historical sense to understand where all this is coming from. And I am talking about equality between the sexes now, just to make that clear. We've been debating equality since the early 1970's, when women in Sweden as well as in the rest of the civilized world started to demand the same rights as men. The struggle to win territory has been going on since then, but the problem that has come up is how to define equality and what kind of equality efforts are positive and which are negative.

For instance (and how it has been widely recieved):
• Feministic people/parties in Sweden have for a long time tried to create laws to force the father in a family to be home more with the children. The plan is to 1) give the kids more time with their dad AND 2) make women more attractive on the job market, since they don't have to be home for as long. (NEGATIVE)
• In Sweden we try to ensure that men and women are paid the same for identical jobs regardless of their sex. (POSITIVE)
• We have ensured that fashion is more unisex and it is today looked upon as very unequal to encourage women to dress sexy, both at work and in their spare time. (NEGATIVE)
• The Swedish government has given women the right to vote in state elections (POSITIVE)
• Swedish women have tought their men to iron, wash, clean, cook etc in order to make the work at home moree equal (POSITIVE)
• Swedish social politics have enabled woman to work outside the house and earn an income (POSITIVE)
• Swedish social politics have made it impossible for a woman to work at home if she wants to. We are dependant on double incomes to survive! (NEGATIVE)
• The laws have forbidden sexual harassment at work and other social functions. (POSITIVE)

So as you see there are both pros and cons with this equality plan. What I react against is among other things the neutralization of the sexes. It reveals itself in style and fashion and the way we treat each other. If you are on a date in sweden with a girl it is expected of you to pay for your meal and your theatre ticket. The
girl will pay for hers. In the name of equality! If you pass a door you are not expected to hold the door for a lady, because she is fully capable of holding the door herself. In the name of equality! If you buy a girl a present it had better not be something sexy or something over feminine, like underwear or - god help us - kitchen stuff. In the name of equality!

WAIT! It is ok to buy jewels for some reason. Probably because they are worth money!

So as you see life in Sweden, as a guy, very quickly becomes a bit boring because we are not allowed to celebrate the women around us for just being women, because that would be sexist. We are not allowed to worship female figures for what they are, because then we "objectify" women. I think this is sad because God was an a very good mood the day he created women and I don't understand why women can't be allowed to be female, and feminine. It sort of takes away the fun. Why is it so wrong with gender roles?!

I am all for equality when it comes to same income, same rights, same treatment, but I HATE IT when it comes to social behaviour. And I hate the limits that we have created for the different laws surrounding equality and sexual harassment for instance. Today it is very easy for a woman in Sweden to get a guy at work fired. All she has to do is say that she has felt like a sexual object and the guy is gone. So it never goes as far as to having to prove physical contact or anything. Just feeling harassed is enough, and you can't defend yourself against that, as a dude.

Today we no longer give each other compliments at work, out of fear of getting sued for sexual harassment. How sick is that? I am afraid to tell my co-workers that they look good in a new dress or something, because I don't want to get charged for it. I think this is stupid. Of course there should be a line drawn at where compliments turn into harassment, but it sure as hell doesn't go at giving one nice compliment. Sometimes you just want to be nice, but no no!

I have never experienced a case of sexual harassment myself, so that is not why I might come off as a bitter old grump, but I have had an aquaintance who had to quit his job because of it. He might have crossed the line, from a female point of view, I don't know. But I think that what he did didn't call for a sexual harassment law suite. He complimented a female co-worker a couple of times and then sent off an email telling her that he thought she looked great and wondered if she wanted to go out on a date with him... Maybe not in those exact words though.

THAT'S FLIRTING! Not sexually harassing someone!

Another example is when psycologists and behavioural scientists tell parents not to dress their little boys in blue and the girls in pink and definitely not give cars to the little boy and dolls to the girl. All this in order to not mold the kids into these gender roles. On the contrary they tell us to give the guy a pink room, and see to that the girls play with cars... What is the point with that?

I believe that boys are boys and girls are girls. We both have different, but just as strong and important, qualities, that need to be used, not surpressed! There are certain things in life than are geared towards a certain sex, like giving birth for example. A man just can't do that, but you sometimes get the feeling here in Sweden that feminists here would like to see a law that forces 50% of all children to be born by men.

So I believe that we have taken the laws of equality to point of absurdity, where we can no longer function properly as two sexes in the span of the universe. If this development continues we'll be looking at a breed of non-sexual, unisexual beings in a couple of centuries not able to reproduce due to lack of interest in each other. Why love the other sex if it is just the same as myself?!

So...keep up the good work and be sure to put proper pants on!

/ Andy

Deep in the unreal

2008-05-30T13:58:00.004+02:00

It's friday today. The sun is shining outside and I'm mentally preparing myself to get home after work and do a show. I've made a few notes during the day, looking through the various news sites covering Sweden and the swedish lifestyle.

Ever heard of Myke Bartlett? As I am writing this I am also listening to Electricity, which is a novel written by Myke Bartlett. I had never heard of him myself, but looking through podiobooks.com, in search for information on how to register as a writer (I'll get back to that in a later post) I stumbled across his work.

"Aston Somerfield, casual smoker and part-time alcoholic, has come to London to find himself. He knows who he's looking for, he's seen him on the cover of the NME. Drawn across oceans by fame and fate, Aston is keeping his diary empty to make sure he's available. Won't commit to anything until it's everything.

London, however, has other ideas.

When a virtual stranger calls Aston a few hours before his death, fate catches up with him, derailing his barely-made plans. Amid a hundred boozy evenings and romantic deadends, a mystery unfurls.
Equally assisted and hindered by tremulous accountant Tom Hensley and dedicated loafer Steven Black, Aston uncovers a different London, one of murder, ghosts, dangerous emails and the second big bang.
As chaotic and random as the city it inhabits, Electricity gradually evolves into a mystery bigger than the universe itself. Being of a somewhat useless persuasion, Aston does his best to ignore it."

There was something in this description that fascinated me. I don't know what, because I usually have a hard time with books where the main character is an alcoholic and everything is about booze, but in this case... Well, something got a hold of me. There was a decadence in the air that attracted my attention.

I'm up to the final chapter now and I have to say that it is a wonderful book, that grips you and takes you with, on a strange, annoying, but yet spiffy journey into the unknown. Sort of, anyway. My point is that I would recommend you to read this book, or listen to it as I have. Myke has a fantastic voice and he does the different characters in a way that I haven't experienced before.

Check out the book at Podiobooks.com.
You have to be registered to listen to the entire book, but it's free and only takes about 3 minutes to fix.

Soon time to check out for this week. My birthday is tomorrow so I'll definitely be off-line this weekend. :-D

/ Andy

New forum for the Polarbear Podcast

2008-05-27T12:35:00.003+02:00

A quick note to all you readers of this blog.

Some of you are also listeners to the podcast and I just wanted to let you know that I have just completed a forum for the show, all about Sweden, that you can now become a member of and start using.

Check it out at: http://polarbear.lefora.com/forum/

Links will be put on the Polarbear website shortl, burt for now this will have to do. A big thanks to Dave Gray over at the Global Geek Podcast for the tip on Lefora!

Have a good one!

/ Andy

Moving a tank

2008-05-24T09:38:00.004+02:00

It's ok...I'm allright. No need to call for paramedics. I just got home from my very first RUN in ages. I think it must have been two or three years since I ran the last time, and even longer since I ran a LONG run. But today the fitness devil (or is that a saint) got hold of me and dragged me out into the track.

Since this was the first time I knew I wouldn't last long. So there weren't any high expectations on my part. I just wanted to get myself through the run without dying. And I did. I'm sitting here now writing about it. :-D

The track today was 2,1 km, that is 2100 metres, which isn't a very long distance for an experienced runner, but for someone who hasn't been running in a while it is like it never ends.

I had to stop once and stretch since I felt the muscles on the back side of my lower leg (whatever they are called) starting to cramp. This was after about 700 metres. After that I didn't stop. Not completely anyway. I stopped running between 1500 and 1700 just to catch my breath, but I kept on power walking, as not to loose the rythm.

And now I'm back home again, after having completed the run and I feel...well...good I guess, but very tired and as if my chest is about to explode, but I guess that is normal.

Now I'm after-sweating and after I complete this post, I'll hit the showers and hopefully feel a lot more energetic during the rest of the day.

This is the start of a plan I have to run "Springtime" next year, which is a local run here in Helsingborg, where almost all my colleagues at work participate, and I have felt envious. So, now that's out in the open - no turning back!!! Ha ha

There is nothing special with Springtime really, but for me just a goal for my training. The plan now is to run once a week, for 6 weeks, alternating with 2-3 walks every week and after that increasing with 1 run every 6 six weeks. So in a few months I'll be running three times a week, and hopefully this will give me a better stamina, help me shed some weight and also get me in shape for Springtime 2009!

Gotto hit the shower now, but I hope to talk to you all again soon and be sure to check the new Polarbear Podcast Update later this weekend!

/ Andy

This is worth 2828 SEK

2008-05-20T21:16:00.002+02:00

What is all this about you wonder? Well, according to bloggvarde.se my blogg, the one you're reading right now, is worth 2 828 swedish kronor.

It doesn't mention where or how I can get this money but to be quite frank it's not all that impressive anyway. And I'm not in the market of selling my blog either right now.

A friend of mine had his blog valued to 286 000 SEK, a bit more impressive, but he isn't either planning on selling his blog to anyone at the moment. He too thinks his blog is a bit underpriced, despite the 286 000 SEK, considering the time and effort he spends on it, doing at LEAST two post per day and that he does it for a major swedish tabloid.

I think this site is just bogus and they even claim that the price is only an indication of the correct market value since they have trained monkeys doing the calculating. Maybe nothing to go to the bank with I guess.

Well, back in a jif with more exciting news from Sweden!

/ Andy

Time to vote again!

2008-05-17T21:38:00.002+02:00

One sweaty walk

2008-05-11T11:25:00.003+02:00

I just came back from a 6 km walk. Nothing strange about that in itself perhaps but this time I was on the verge of killing myself. You'll se why!

I walked out there, well prepared for the hour long walk, with my iPod locked and loaded, with my walking shoes on and - since it's been pretty warm the last couple of days - wearing only a pair of knee high shorts and a sweatshirt.

As I got to 3 km, I got confirmation that it was more than just a little hot outside. A thermometer at the local store read 23.5°C (73°F) and it was only 09.30 am. There I was in the middle of my route, in glaring swedish sunlight in the morning sweating my ass off.

Walking at the pace I do, is in itself a workout, and doing it under these conditions is not only tougher but also plain out stupid. I hadn't brought any fluids along and I noticed that for every step I took I became warmer and warmer. And it wasn't that kind of nice workout:ish warmth. It was more of the "get-me-the-hell-out-of-here" warmth. There just wasn't any shade around, without me having to stop and hide in some bushes or something. And that was out of the question. I had to get home!

As I passed the 5 km marker (estimated up in my head, from having read the google map pedometer from my previous walks) I was sweating like an eskimo in the Sahara desert. It was as if a layer of heat was pumping around between my skin and the sweatshirt and despite all efforts to cool down I just got warmer and warmer. My head was hurting and my eyes where bluring. This wasn't a good sign!

As you might understand I got home alright and even if I am exagerating a tad, it was much warmer outside that I had anticipated. Lesson learned! Never again will I leave home wearing a big sweatshirt (that usually keeps me warm in the winter) when the temperatures are around 22-25 °C if I am planning on power walking for an hour. Adn the silly thing is that I took just to feel confident since it "hides" a bit of my bodymass compared to a t-shirt...! Now isn't that plain daft?

Now, 20 minutes after I got home, I can finally move around again, and getting down here, in the basement where I have my computer, was wonderful because it's cool down here... Thank god for the new studio! I am still a bit exhausted, but let's look at it from the bright side:

It was a hell of a workout today!

Talk to you all soon again, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter in the meantime!

The Polarbear is now taking a shower!

/ Andy

Off to the library

2008-05-02T08:48:00.002+02:00

So I just released a little snippet on the Polarbear Podcast feed telling my loyal listeners to not go away, because I haven't gone away. I have just been out of the loop for a while, doing other things and for this reason I felt I needed to address this in some way, and what could be better than here on the blog.

First of there has been a lot of work going on in our basement the past weeks. We have turned a filthy worn down garage into a studio/dressing room with a new floor, new walls, new artwork on those walls, a row of closets and two working spaces where of one is my studio. Marie (aka my wife) has lended me a hand sewing some curtains for sound muffling, but despite that we're not home yet I'm afraid. I still ned to get a carpet under me to deflect even more sound, bouncing off the hard surfaces in the room. But all this will be done within the week. After that I will technically be able to record a show.

Secondly I've had a rough few months at work. I just today released one magazine to the printer and next week two more will follow. Somehow the planning hasn't worked 100% and things have got piled up.
Also there has been a lot of discussions lately about how we should conduct our work in the future, trying to make our department as efficient as possible. The company initiated a project to find out how we can utilize our staff and equipment in the best way for instance. It's very exciting and we believe it will be a win-win situation both for the company and ourselves. But as I said, it has taken some time off from other stuff. And new routines take time getting used to.

Thirdly there has been stuff going on with Swecasters (www.swecasters.com) lately, and on Sunday (4th of may) we will be having our second annual meeting in the history of the organization, electing a new board and chairman. Hopefully I will still have the trust of the members to stay on as chairman, but you never know.
And speaking of Swecasters, I am having a meeting this afternoon with the local library here in Helsingborg, to discuss how they can help us spread the word of podcasting to the local population, through events such as workshops, seminars, lectures etc. Also I am hoping to discuss how ALL libraries in Sweden can do the same thing and how we can organize that. Very exciting things anyway and I will be sure to give you an update on how all this went down.

So with all these things going on you might understand that my head just hasn't been able to handle a podcasting recording too. I've had the physical time perhaps, but with the studio not being ready and the sound not being the way I like it, and all these other things going on... Well, as podcasters are known to say: Sometimes life get's in the way!

But I am aiming on doing a show this weekend so hopefully there will be a new one out there next week.

Ta'da!

/ Andy

Back to basics

2008-04-25T22:56:00.005+02:00

I got some tips from one of my idols back on a recent post, regarding that I was getting back to writing my book, and that I had trouble finding, or figuring out, the story. It was a comment posted by Mr Scott Sigler himself, the man who got me inspired into writing a book in the first place.

The tip he gave me was to take a step back and figure out and sketch up the entire story, before continuing to write. In that way I wouldn't end up completing 80% of the book just to find myself at a dead end. So I took this valuable piece of advice and did exactly what he suggested and that is the point I'm at right now.

I already completed 7 chapters before I got Scott's advice, but I have come to a point where I have to choose what this book is really about now. Up until now I've sort of just thrown the ball up in the air. Now it's time to serve and choose where to put the ball in the opponents court. The problem is that I can't do that. Decide I meen. I 've tried to get some help from my son for instance who has a vivid imagination and loves writing stories of his own. Even if his ones are very simple (he's only ten) he still managed to plant some ideas in my head, so I thank him for that. He migh actually have cracked the whole thing.

My problem is that I want a story that comes naturally to me. I dont want to have to squeeze it out of me and spend hours and hours fabricating something that doesn't feel "me". So I am trying to decide which way this story should go, and at this point I haven't been able to.

But one thing I DO know is that as soon as the book is completed, it will be published as a podcast novel through Podiobooks and if things go well (which they probably won't) sold through some kind of printing on demand publisher (tips are welcome).
And since I am dedicated to getting it done, I will be looking for someone to record it, so if you're up for it and interested in stuff like that, send me an e-mail and let me know. I'm sure we can work something out.
I'm also interested in finding a band that can contribute with music to the podcast novel, as intro music. Something pretty hard core...

Well, now you know what the status of the book is, so I can get back to the storyboard and choose what way I want to go.

Talk to you all again soon!

/ Andy

Polarbear Studio touch up.

2008-04-23T16:20:00.002+02:00

Outside the sun is shining and it feels like any day in July, apart from the fact that I'm wearing a sweater over my regular t-shirt and I had to scrape ice from the car this morning.

But that is not why I am back posting stuff here on the blogg. I just wanted let you guys know that the Studio is just about done. We've fixed the floor, painted the walls, installed the power and furnished the place. The only thing right now that is left to do is sew and put up curtains in a few places to silence the room a bit. Now, as you might guess, this work is something I have left to Marie to do, and of course she is busy with other stuff, so as of right now there are no curtains (or should that be "drapes") to hang up. I have put up the hanging gadget thingy, so I'm just waiting for her professional sewing work to be done to.

The bad thing is that I can't record until the drapes are up since the ambient noice is to strong, and that is why there hasn't been a show or even an update for a while. HURRY UP MARIE!

For those of you that have been checking out the studio makeover event site, over on the Polarbear website (polarbearpodcast.com) might have notices a decrease in the amounts of pictures I post every week, and now you know why! There just hasn't happened much and I don't want to post any pictures before it's ALL DONE at this point. It would just give it away too much I think.

So, be sure to check the website from time to time to see the pictures and if you feel like, you can always follow me on Twitter to get the latest updates on what is going on regarding the studio and everything else in life.

Talk to you all again soon!

/ Andy

I'm going back to writing my book!

2008-04-08T11:26:00.007+02:00

I was sitting here today listening to the latest episode of The Bitterest Pill (the premium version) with Dan Klass when he mentions the bestseller he is going to write this year. Interesting wouldn't you say? And it dawns on me that I too have an unfinished book lying around in my drawer at home.

Well, to be totally honest, it's not in an actual drawer but recides on my computers harddrive. Under the folder named "The Book" or as it actually is written, "Boken", since I did it in swedish. But the book itself is in english, or at least what I claim to be english.

I don't know if I have already told you guys about "the book" ("boken") that I am referring to, but I started wrtiting it about a year ago, heavily influensed by Scott Sigler, the infamous sci-fi thriller author who wrote the very first podcast novel, Earthcore.
What isnpired me was not only the style in which he writes, which is very simple and laid back but also the fact that he indeed did it. No fuss, no putting it off or going back to it later. He did it. And since then he has done it multiple times, and given us Ancestor, Infection, The Rookie and so on.

I've had an idea for a book for quite some time and last year I decided, influenced by Scott, that I would actually sit down and start writing it. And so I did. I wrote like as if my life was depending on it. I got to chapter 3 or 4 when suddenly it all came to a halt. I hade carefully sculpted a scenario of events that would intertwine with each other but then suddenly I got stuck! I couldn't solve my own puzzle. DAMN IT!

So after a few days of trying to work this out I simply put the book back into the "drawer" (the folder named "boken") and since then it has been lying there collecting virtual dust and just waiting for me to find inpiration again and pull it out.

I think I might have reached that point now. Not that I have come up with some genious plan on how to continue the story but I feel that it is time to see if I can. So thonight I will go back, read it over again and see if the next chapter just comes to me as I read.

Thank you Dan, for being the inspiration this time, and good luck on your bestseller! I doubt mine is ever going to be anything but perhaps a podcast novel, but it is fun writing! I have to say.

/ Andy

What's up with Firefox?

2008-04-08T10:01:00.002+02:00

Just a quick tech-question for y'all!

I've been running Firefox since the dark ages on my Mac, but recently things have started to act strange. It's as if someone put syrap in the system
or something. Loading pages takes FOREVER and it doesn't help that I block ads to save download time or even block the adblocking plug-in to save processing time. Things just run slow. Scrolling down a website forces the spinning ball of death to appear every time and it's becoming a major problem.

I switched back to Safari yesterday, just to see if the problem perhaps was the internet connection, but POOF, suddenly everything went with sonic speed. Safari feels like a snappy software right now, compared to the syrap version of Firefocx, but it does have major disadvantages, that I can't figure out why Apple doesn't fix.

Why won't all websites work in Safari for example? Why do you need to tell Safari who it should simulate in the debug-menu? What can't you have add-ons that makes the surfing experience a bit nicer? Why doesn't simple web 2.0 applications work on Safari?

Why doesn't my Firefox work as it should????? I miss my Firefox!

Enough

/ Andy

I want to expand

2008-04-04T09:09:00.003+02:00

So as I said in my previous post, I haven't been up to doing a show in a little while. Not that I haven't wanted, but I just haven't been able to due to my screwed up throat. But as I am sitting here, frustrated about not getting anything out there, a new thing hits me.

I want to expand. I want to get a new show out there but this time in swedish. The strange thing here in Sweden you see, is that no-one is podcasting! I am the chairman of the swedish podcasting association, Swecasters, and I KNOW how many podcasters there are in sweden and let me tell you, you could fit them all in one buss and - if you wanted - blow it up. Not that I encourage this, but I just don't understand why this country is so bad at podcasting. We're so in the front line with everything else that has to do with technology. Why not podcasting???

So I thought the other day that I should scrap my other swedish podcast that I do on a local level and instead focus on doing a show on the national level. A show that would be very much influensed by the big american talkshows like Howard Stern, Keith and the Girl, Dawn and Drew, OP and Anthony etc. A show that hopefully would get a larger audience and have a bigger impact on the podcasting scene here in Sweden. And maybe even make the big guys in broadcasting curious...

But doing a show like that is kind of tough. It takes time, and effort and a lot of researching to get right. Not that I don't want to do that, but maybe I would be biting off a little bit more than I can chew. But it's a wide open road a head of me, no obstacles and - as of now - no competition what so ever. It's like scoring a goal while the goal keeper is taking a leak. It just can't fail!

I don't know what I'll do, but the swedish show I'm doing right now is not getting the attention it deserves, neither from me or the listeners, so it's slowly turning into a once a month thing and that isn't really the point.

Stay tuned if you want to know how all this turns out. I know I'll have to do something sooner or later and it might just as well be sooner.

/ Andy

What a crappy cold!

2008-04-03T09:31:00.003+02:00

Those of you who regularly listen to the podcast (Polarbear Podcast) might have noticed that I haven't posted a show yet this week, and the reason for this is a lingering cold that has taken control over my speach.

It all becomes apparant when I try to speak. Four or five words is the most I can get out of my mouth before an irritating cough takes it's place. And having a condition like this, may not be very serious from a life/death perspective, but is VERY serious from a podcasting perspective. I can't even make it half way through a sentence before I start coughing, and that of course makes podcasting a bit tough.

I will try however to get at least an update-episode out there for you within a few days, but please don't get your hopes up too much for a regular show. I hate having these kind of symptoms because I'm not really sick. I feel fine in general, as long as I shut up, and refrain from speaking. It's getting on my nerves.

Well, I hope to TALK to you again very soon.

/ Andy

Let's hope Ukraine wins!

2008-04-01T14:01:00.004+02:00

This post has nothing what so ever to do with Sweden or Podcasting or anything else that I usually blog about. This post is about Ani Lorak, the Ukraine representative for the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in Belgrade.

I found out about Ani (or Karolina as her real name is – Ani Lorak backwards) when looking in Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet who ran an article about who is going to be the biggest competition for our own Charlotte Perelli as she competes in Belgrade on the 22nd of May this year. The one person that they single out as the biggest threat is above mentioned Ani Lorak.

So I had a look at her website and listened to her song, and I have to say two things.
1) Ani Lorak will definitely beat Charlotte Perelli in the ESC. Her song Shady Lady is really good (for an ESC-song) and stands a much better chance of winning now that all eastern European countries are in the race to vote for each other.
2) Ani Lorak is without competition the worlds most beautiful woman!

There, I said it! As soon as I get home today I will be sure to update the Laminated List and put Ms Lorak in slot no 1 of the list. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this Ukrainian beauty. Photogenique, charming, laid back, good looking, gravity defying, cute, bootylicious... I can't come up with any more words to describe her. She is just simply the best work that God has ever done! Period!!!

So in the upcoming ESC I will be rooting for Ukraine, and that is something that I never thought would happen!

Viva Ukraine!

/ Andy

So

Remodelling in progress

2008-03-14T08:22:00.006+01:00

So it's time, once again for us, to do some serious remodelling. This time it's in our new house. Two projects are active right now and I thought I'd just walk you through them so you are up to date.

First we have the small project, the ground floor bathroom.
This has been Marie's (my wife) project. When we moved in, the bathroom could best be described as an orgy in blue. The walls where blue (and I'm talking about that deep cobolt blue colour now), the sink was blue-ish, the toilet was blue and the floor tiles where also blue (with streaks of purple, white and grey). So there had to be some major changes made. First of all we got rid of the sink and toilet, both original from when the house was built in 1959, and bought brand new ones, in white porcelin with a slightly more modern look and feel. To help us with installing these (since I am not a plummer) we called in Renato from Västra VVS Service who helped us out. He also installed a new radiator in project number 2, but I will get back to that.
After this was done, which turned out not to be too easy since the holes for the sink where screwed up and the sink fell off the wall a few times before we did it right, we started painting the walls. Marie had picked out a cool light grey colour in an effort to make the small bathroom look a bit bigger. But before we could paint the walls we needed to get the wallpaper down, which proved to be pretty easy since it was put up pretty poorly some 40 years ago.
Marie did all the painting and it was done over a weekend.
The only thing that is left to do now, is fix the electrical stuff, get a lamp in place and recolour the edges of some of the black tiles that underline the walls to the floor. They have had 15 different types of paint splashed on them for a while so we thought it would be easier just to paint over 'em. After this the bathroom will be done.

Project number 2 is the big one.
When we moved in there was an old garage in the basement, which is very typical swedish 50's deisgn. The former owners had closed it up and started fixing it but never got around to finishing. So when we moved in the floor was old, oily and in pretty bad shape and the walls were... well don't get me started on the walls. Also there is a vent in the room that is nothing short of a big drafty hole where the cold outside air just streams in and cools down the entire basement.
Step one was to get all the debris out. The former owners had started using the room for "storage" of stuff they didn't want, like old doors, left over tiles, sacks of construction waste etc. Once this was done we had a guy come over and asses the damage.
Next step was for him to call in his special operations guys and they did something that we in sweden call "flytspackla" which means that they poured out floating putty (or concrete) to level out the floor, since before, the floor was slanted so that water could reach the drain. But since the drain is gone there is no need for the slant so therefor the "flytspackel".
After this was done we sent off the pros and started doing the hard work laying the new tiles ourselves. Prior to doing this we had to prime the floor which basically means the you apply a sort of adhesive so that the concrete you use to fix the tiles will stick to the floor properly. That's what the pros say anyway.
So last weekend my father in law and I spent most of the day on our hands and knees laying out the tiles in the room. It all went pretty well, even if it was a tough job. Then on wednesday this week we did the last part of the floor when we seamed the tiles (is that the coorect term?). To explain it we put down the finals seams that go between the tiles in order to get that typical tile look and feel. It didn't take that long but it was hard work anyway. I'm not used to doing stuff like this. I'm a podcaster, not a contractor...! But it has been great fun learning how to do stuff like this from someone who is at least semiprofessional.
So right now the floor is done and we will be taking on the walls this weekend, fixing holes, installing a new working vent, tearling down the old wallpaper etc. So there is still a lot to do, but getting the floor done was kind of the major thing and it feels good that that part is over. And it all toruned out so very well.

Before any of this work was done in the basement our friend Renato helped us install a new radiator in the room. A radiator that was built to supply the entire room whith enough heat to keep it warm and cosy. This room, you see, when it is finished, is going to become my studio, so I am very picky in getting the details right in order to end up with a nice, comfortable and cosey room.

Well, that's all for now, and I hope that you can have some oversight with the fact that I have been out of the loop for a while. Now you know why!

/ Andy

Worst blogger ever!

2008-03-13T14:10:00.004+01:00

I just have to be the worst blogger ever, who walked the face of the earth. My last post was back in January - shame on me - but how much I try, I never seem to get around to posting things here on the blogg. I guess I'm just too occupied with life, to have time to write about it.

I just checked my stats and it turns out that there are actually quite a few people (there among you) that visit this site from time to time. So that has to mean that there actually is a point in posting my stories here.

Well, to let you in on what is going right now here in Sweden, there is - among other things - a fierce debate headlining every newspaper regarding paternity leave. The debate is focused on which measures the government should take to make dads take out their fair share of the disposable days, granted to us by law. From where I am standing, I believe they are attacking the issue from all the wrong angles.

In sweden, fathers are allowed to take out just as many days paternity leave as the mother. But as the situation is at the moment they choose not to. For different reasons. To ensure total equality a number of pro-equality organisations and political parties have fueled the debate wanting the government to force the dads to be home 50% of the time with the kids.

I believe this plan is stupid! Fair and square. I think it should be up to every family themselves to decide how they want to dispose of the x amount of days that we get. Why should the government do that. In what way will we ensure equality with laws like this. All it does is create frustration and anger which will probably go out on the kids or something. The first two years of a childs life is very much focused on the mother. She is the closest thing to a baby, on a pure biological och physical level. Why change natures plan and force the mother away from the child in order to feed the "equality frekas"? Do you remember who took care of you the first two years of your life? I guess the answer is no, so why shoudl it matter. The mother is mor fit (hormones, breasts, smell etc) to do this work according to me.

I am not trying to shove all the work down the throat of the mothers, but in a household with kids, everyone knows there are a lot of things to be done, so why not leave the babysitting to the mother, and the dad can take care of other things.

One reason for wanting this law is to force employers to level the income between the sexes. Because they have to be fair if a family is to survive on the dad being home and the mother workning - IN MOST CASES. Women often tend to have less paying jobs so it's financially smarter for the dad to keep working.

Well, as I said, I think the whole discussion is daft. Why force parents into something that is so unnatural?! Let nature have it's way and enforce laws that make s it easier for the FAMILY to get by instead. See the family as an entity and not the individual mother and father. They are a team and as long asthe team wins, why mess with it.

Or as my old mentor Anders Åström, God rest his soul, used to say: If it works - don't fix it!

Hope to be back again soon

/ Andy

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T12:22:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone out there in the world wide...world..?!

It's 2008 now. We survived the festivities yesterday and saw a fireworks show over Helsingborg that was amazing. Everything is looking great for a fantastic year of work, podcasting, family matters, house improvements and everyhting else. I just have a hunch that this will be a good year.

So from all of us here at the Polarbear Studios, we hope you've had a great New Years Eve and that yu will have a fantastic year too. I will try my best to keep you posted on interesting and fun stuff from my hometown of Helsingborg, Sweden over the course of 2008.

Talk to you again soon,

/ Andy

Thanks for stopping by

2007-12-28T13:50:00.000+01:00

Christmas is over. Finally, I have to say. It has been a bit more stressful than I first anticipated, with us moving and all. But yesterday we finally got something back.

We had new friends from the other side of the globe over for dinner you see. I've gotten to know Joyce and her hubby James through the Polarbear Podcast, which they are avid listeners to. They where over here in Sweden for a winter vacation and decided to pay us a visit and see the Polarbear Studio from the INSIDE, and it was all great fun.

We got to talk and hear about their trip over and all the things they had experienced on the way, and we also managed to record a show. Or as it will be posted as, 2 or 3 shows. We just couldn't stop talking. It was all great fun anyway, and today I am spending my time editing the audio from that session yesterday.

Marie got a chance to learn a thing or two about photography from James who is a skillful photographer, and she told me as we went to sleep yesterday that she was very greatful for that.

So the entire evening yesterday was all about J&J coming over and this also resulted in us getting the house in order much quicker than we probably would have otherwise. You really need that motivation!

So a big thanks to J&J, for stopping by, spending some time with us and last but not least, for supplying me with yet another Hot Tamales rassion.

I am hoping on repaying the visit any day soon, as we set sail for California!

But 'til then I hope you all stay subscribed to the podcast and listen to everything we talked about on this dubble or tripple episode of the show!

/ Andy

The rain keeps falling...

2007-12-26T22:53:00.000+01:00

This time of year, there is supposed to be snow on the ground. A thick layer of snow covering the trees and the lamp posts in the morning. A beautiful cover of soft, cold but glistening snow that stretches out into the fields and meadows.

But all we've got this year is rain. Cold, unforgiving rain. Rain that somehow seems to be coming from the left and going to the right. So has all this rain got something to do with our changing climate? Is this the result of me driving to work one to many times instead of taking the bike. But all I want, is to be able to get home a bit faster. Not having to get wet in the rain.

It's boring, whatever the reason is for this constant rain. Well, we have had our share of dry and sunny days too, and even some cold ones. But it doesn't seem possible to combine cold and rain in these parts of the world. After all, that is what I am asking for, because that simple combination is what gives us snow!

Well, even if Christmas was wet and rainy, let's hope for a cold and snowy New Years instead. We can't loose hope now! So from all of us here at the Polarbear Studios (and that would include Marie and myself) we wish you a great end of 2007 and happ new 2008!

I'll write to you again in the new year!

Cheers...

/ Andy

Damn it! I forgot!

2007-12-20T09:54:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone, and thanks for sticking around if you read this. I have to admit that with all the commotion going on surrounding our wedding this summer and our recent purchase of a house, things have been pretty tight. It's hard finding time to do what you want.

I manage to do the things I need, like go to work, pick up the kids from school, go grocery shopping and pay my bills. But the things I WANT to do, like podcast, write this blog, go to the movies and so on, have all been put aside this fall. It's a bit boring but such has been the case. I 've even forgot about having this blog...

I've really had to cut back on the podcasting and that sucks. I normally released a new show every week but lately I've taken that down to once every second week, and during the last 3 weeks I haven't posted on single episode. I just don't have time for it. I hate that!!!

But now we're all done moving. We're in the new house, fighting our way through boxes still, but in place at least. In a few weeks I hope to be up and running with the new studio and later in 2008 I will also complete the construction of the new studio in the basement, specially designed for podcasting. Nice huh?

Well, talk to you all soon again!

/ Andy

Back again from vacation!

2007-08-01T22:28:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone out there. I'm back again behind the computer after 5 (!) weeks of vacation and I've been through quite a lot. It's been a very eventful vacation this year when I think of it.

Most recently (earlier tonight to be precise) I was at the movies with Marie and saw Pirates of the Carribean 3 (or however it is spelled) with Kiera Knightly, Orlando Bloom and the fantastic Johnny Depp portraying Cpt Jack Sparrow in the same marvelous way as in the former movies in the same series. He is by far the most colourful character in the movie and I love his small quirks and his never ending ego. Wonderful!

But this vacation has been about more that just Jack Sparrow. The first two weeks of it was for example spent preparing for the biggest day of this year, and maybe a few more to come too. Unfortunately all this preparing made these two weeks fly by without very much actual VACATION, if you know what I mean. I just hadn't the time to sit and relax in the garden or go to the beach. Not that the weather would allow it anyway, as I have already posted below.

Then came the big day and Marie and I joined hands in matrimony, which there will be a BTS-special about (BTS=Bed Time Story as in the sporadic shows I do withing the frame of the Polarbear Podcast, together with Marie) as soon as we get the time to record one. We got wed anyway, by a confused priest accompanied by a tone deaf cantor (hope he got fired after our wedding) and after that we took off to Gotland where we spent a great week, even if the initial hotel was shite. But everything worked out for the best. But we would appreciate any donations you can give, to cover the add-on expenses that the new hotel came with. :-D

The Journey to Gotland was something we discussed in detail on a BTS that I posted just a few days ago, so if you haven't heard that, please check it out. (polarbear.libsyn.com)

After the trip to Gotland we got home, picked up the kids from their mum's and had one week of total relaxation in the pouring rain. Not much to do but we managed to visit friends and relatives which of course was kind of nice.

The week after that, being the last week of vacation, we took the kids and drove up to Kolmården, which is a wildlife reservation park up outside Norrköping. That is a 6 hour drive from here, including stops for lunch and toilet visits. We had a great time up there, stayed at a classic swedish camping site, even if we chose to rent a cottage and not live in tents, but it was a nice contrast to the hotell we ended up in on Gotland. Yin and Yang!

Also during this vacation I finally managed to finish off the back yard terrace, which now can be enjoyed to its fullest. Stone on the ground, new grass growing outside that and a nice white fence put up too, preventing the dog from running off and chasing rabbits. I am very proud of that fence!

And now I'm back to work again, trying to convince myself that I've had a nice vacation, which of course is true to most parts, but it was so SHORT and over before I could count to 10! The only big dissapointment this year was the crappy hotell we ended up in on Gotland when we got there, but now we know never to trust the resorts ads, but check with references first in the future! So my tips to you all: Don't go and stay at Villa Alskog on Gotland because it is NOT a hotell, but a hostel, and it does not have a SPA, even if they seam to think they do. It was a really hideous place in it's current ownership. 'Nough said about that now.

I am very glad anyway to be back in the saddle and I am hoping on giving you a more regular posting here on the blog in the future, now that this vacation is over.

Talk to you soon again!

/ Andy

And the rain keeps falling down!

2007-07-06T01:12:00.000+02:00

Hi again. I just wanted to report on a current topic and that is the enormous amounts of rain that has hit Helsingborg in the last 24 hours, resulting in massive floodings and a lot of accidents.

I was down at work today to check up on the aftermath of a burglary that we had last night and found to my surprise that the entire house we sit in was surrounded bu water. Water up to mu KNEES! Take a look at the images if you don't believe me.

Later on I took Marie with me down ther and we photo documented the whole thing for insurance reasons and just an hour ago I was called down again by the securit company because the flooding in the basement had reach such a level that they had to cut the power, which of course means that all the servers had to be shut off in a proper manner before they could do that. Otherwise they risk being damaged, and we don't want that!

So I've just come home form a nice 1 hour shift at work shutting down all the servers and some of them have been up for so long that I had a hard time remembering how to shut them down. It's not just pulling the power cords on these machines. They have to be taken down in a controlled manner.

So I thought I'd share this little adventure with you and give you some photographic proof that we here in Sweden also have floodings once in a while...unfortunately!

See you all soon!

/ Andy

I'm getting married in the morning!

2007-07-05T15:24:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone, and a big apology for not putting out a post for ages! As some of you may know the reason for abscence is that I will be getting married on Saturday, which really is only two days away from when I write this. Or one and a half day actually...

Getting married in Sweden is as it is in most western countries, with the only difference that we may not be as extreme as is often portrayed in the US or England. In Marie's and my case we're going to take it pretty cool, not going over the top with anything really, but staying on a sane level where both fun and finances can get along just fine.

We are getting married in a beautiful church in the little country town of Svalöv, just a few miles west of Landskrona in the south parts of Sweden. Most of Marie's relatives are from there and she grew up there herself, and since my side of the family lives all over the place it felt natural to hold the wedding down here.

Everything is pretty much set for the big day now, and tomorrow I will pick up the kids from their mum's place, pick up some lighting equipment, try on our suits for the last time in the shop and go down to the place where we will hold the reception and start fixing everything there. I don't really know how we are going to pull this off because we have SO much stuff that we need to take with us and the car only fits a certain amount, but somehow we will find a way to solve that problem!

But the next time I will post something here, I will be a married man, and hopefully everything will have worked out fine!

So best wishes to you all, and be sure to check out the Polarbear Podcast if you want to learn more about the upcoming event!

/ Andy

Dissapointed but not disillusioned!

2007-06-17T22:12:00.000+02:00

I am writing this post as the host of the Polarbear Podcast, nothing else, and it's all regarding the recent announcement that the winner of the 2007 Swedish Podcasting Awards, categories 'Best original Podcast' and 'Best Amateur Podcast' was a show that evidently cares nothing for podcasting as I know it, but just happened to have most pals out there.

Let me start from the beginning. A podcasting association in Sweden decided to sponsor the awards with fine prizes hoping to spur the amateur and original podcasters out there in the country. And for a while during the votings, it looked quite good, allthough the same podcast lead both categories, but that is very possible.
24 hours prior to the closing of the voting a new name started moving up the charts and soon took the lead in a lot of the categories, and among them, these two that I have just mentioned. I tried checking the podcast out, since I had never heard of it, but I couldn't find anything that even closely resembled a podcast or an rss-feed. A few of the members in the association got in touch saying the same thing and we were all a bit baffled by how this so called podcast had made it into the contest. They ended up winning, but the questions started to arise. Who where they? Were could one locate their podcast? Did they even have one?

As it turned out they didn't really have a podcast. Not in the sense as most people mean anyway, allthough they do according to definitions discussed after the announcement. They apparantly had a feed, allthough it wasn't a regular one, and I still can't find it for iTunes for example. They have an mp3-blogg, that they automatically turn into a podcast, consisting of a song. No intro, no jingles, no presentation of the song, just the song.

Now, these guys apparantly had a lot of friends who voted for them, because no one else had even heard of them before, and as I said they don't produce a regular podcast either so that wasn't really too strange. They weren't even sure if they wouldbe allowed to be nominated but got the green light from the organizers of the awards.

I am very dissapointed in the fact that this so called podcast is now what we in sweden have to consider to be the very best original podcast and the very best amateur podcast. This is the best we have! This, and the re-runs of Swedish Public Radio's (SR) shows. But that's another story. So just because these guys had the most number of pals, they are suddenly what we in Sweden have to consider the Best Swedish Original Podcast!

You might think that I'm just jealous, but I'm not. I was of course nominated, but I didn't think I would stand a chance. I was instead hoping for a friend of mine who does an awesome show about pop culture. You know a real podcast, where you actually put something into the show, but one single freaking song, that is automatically converted into a podcast by a webservice.

Even if this podcast that won, did so within the cold hard definitions of the words 'podcast', 'original' and 'amateur', they are not by any means what I call a podcast and I feel embarrased that this is what we will be showing off to the world for the next year. This is what we here in sweden consider to be the BEST. According to this shows friends anyway.

Next year I will be submitting a new podcast called the "Test-tone podcast", where I once a week put out a 30 second show consisting of a test-tone i 440 Hz. I will sydicate it and then enter the contest. With the help of MySpace and a lot of giveaways to everyone who votes, I will be sure to win and then we can see how happy the swedish podcasting community will be about having that to boast with. We will soon be the test-tone country, to every single real podcaster in the world. What a brilliant and evil plan! I won't do it of course but it shows on how wrong this method is of bringing forward the best podcast we have.

I like the music that DiscoBelle (check it out) plays, and I like that they are doing it, I just don't consider them to be a podcast, because to me a podcast is something that takes creativity, work, passion and commitment to create. It's not something that is done automatically by a webservice. Even if the guys over at DiscoBelle choose a new song every week, they don't really do a podcast ACCORDING TO ME!
And I'm sick and tired of everyone shoving definitions up in my face. I don't care. For me podcasting is a work of passion, regardless of what you claim. I mean that it takes more than a automated webservice to become a podcaster.

Won't they just love my Test-tone podcast...?

Please feel free to comment this post and supply me with any thoughts you might have on the subject!

/ Andy

Thank you PodCamp Europe!

2007-06-16T22:27:00.000+02:00

PodCamp Europe 2007 is over and it was a blast! 140 people had signed up to attend the very first unconference ever being held in Stockholm, Sweden. Not all of them showed up. Not at once anyway, but those who came seemed pretty happy about it and the entire event had a great feel to it.

On June 12-13 PodCamp Europe opened its gates to the preregistered attendants at Älvsjömässan in Stockholm, Sweden. It was the annual VON-fair that had sponsored PodCamp with the venue and they where an extraordinary host, making sure that everyone was happy all the time! In charge of the fair was Jeff Pulver of Pulvermedia.com and he had given PodCamps founders Christopher Penn and Chris Brogan free hands to make their event whatever they wanted. And it was good. For all information regarding the event in itself, I refer you to the PodCamp website.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who made this event possible and say hi to all my new friends, so here it is:

Thank you:
Christopher Penn, Financial Aid Podcast
Chris Brogan, chrisbrogan.comLind Mills, Podcast User Magazine

Best wishes to:
Dean Whitbread, Talking Voices
John Buckley, Citizen Scoop
Phil Campbell, me.dm
Mike O'Hara, Voices in Business
Daniel Glifberg, Ericsson
Karin Hoegh, PodHandle
Daniel Chow, Second Sweden
Yossi Twizer, Verint
Caroline Mattsson, Googol

And a special thanks to:
Jason Jarrett, A Buddhist Podcast, for touching my soul in a way I cannot yet describe!

So as you might understand the podcasting main event this far, this year, was definitely PodCamp Europe 2007, and I hope to be the one who brings you PodCamp Scandinavia 2008, but it's a long time 'til then!

/ Andy

Heads or tails?

2007-05-16T22:34:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was a big day in Helsingborg when our home team in football (or soccer as some people prefer to call it) - HIF - took on our neighbour town of Malmös team - MFF - in what will be the first of two derbys this season.

It was a grand game and very exciting, even if we didn't win the game, and I wish I had seen it. On TV that is!

Let me run some numbers by you and you might start to get the picture why that is.

Number of teams playing: 2
Goals scored: 1 (by MFF)
Riots started: 3
People arrested: 6 - on charges of assault and battery
People detained: 53
People searched: 40

Is this football?

Yesterday the city of Helsingborg looked more like a battlefield than one of the most beautiful cities in Sweden, with riot police all over the place; on foot, on horseback, in cars etc. There were gangs with hooligans and 'normal' people almost floating thorugh town making every street they entered an unsafe place. And all this in the name of football?!

What's wrong with people?
Why does football have to be equivalent with violence?

I read about 'fans' walking to the arena before the game, letting off steam or something by kicking off the side view mirrors on cars as they were parked along the street. And these intelligent kids were actually from Helsingborg, so they destroyed the vehicles of their own home town. To make what statement?!?!

I read about so called supporters making plans in advance to meat up in different locations across the city to fight. Like it was to have a coffee or something. They met up, kicked each others asses and then went on with their business as if nothing had happened.

I am afraid to watch a football game at our home arena Olympia. I am afraid to even go there. I'm afraid that I might end up in the middle of some crazy hormon-pumped hooligans rage against each other. Get kicked down because I'm wearing the wrong clothes. Or for having done something just as petty as that.
I don't watch the games at the arena any more and I don't take my son there either. I don't feel that I can protect him in that environment. It doesn't feel safe. Now, how sick isn't that?!

It's time we put down our foot and stopped accepting violence as a part of traditional football. Stopped being such woosies, just looking the other way. I have some ideas of how to do it but I know it will never happen because there is to much money at stake here.

If there is any violence what so ever prior to a game: cancel the game without refund.
If there is any violence during the game: blow off the game.
Make the teams play in empty arenas if their supporters misbehave
Make the clubs responsible for what goes on in and around the arena during games.
Convict people who start the fights and give them hard sentences so they learn!

But I know most of this won't happen. But there was one club up in Stockholm last year who had to play before empty seats after their supporters charged the field in a prior game. GOOD! But the problem isn't just what goes on during the game. It's what happens outside the arena before and - most important - after the game. It's about not feeling safe walking around the central parts of town just because there is a game that day. It's about spending millions and millions of crowns on police precense just because two teams are going to play soccer. It's nuts! We can't give our kids proper books in school but we can have police from five different cities in the region working overtime just to keep fucked up 'supporters' from killing each other.

I give up!

I'll be down in the livingroom watching a rerun of the game if you need me...

/ Andy

Sing Hallelujah

2007-05-15T14:03:00.000+02:00

The past weekend saw the 52nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, being held in Helsinki, Finland since the monster rock band Lordi last year took home the title for Finland for the very first time in the competitions history.

This year Sweden competed with a song called The Worrying Kind (Listen to it). It was written and performed by The Ark, which is a fairly well known swedish rock band, who very much have risen to stardome thanks to their charismatic lead singer Ola Salo.

Prior to the contest, people withing the Eurovision circuit said that the Ark stood a good chance of winning the contest. Or at least ending up in the top 3. As it turned out, The Ark (who performed below their average according to me) ended up in place #18, only six places from the bottom.

Rock bottom!

This means, according to the rules in the contest that Sweden next year has to qualify to even be in the contest. So, what went wrong?

Well, one of the major problems concerning the Eurovision Song Contest these days is that the east european countries have started to dominate more and more. These countries weren't allowed in the contest back in the "Cold War"-days so they have a lot of built up energy that has come out now, and the Eurovision Song Conterst has become a big thing in that part of Europe. In the west part though, things are moving in the opposite direction. We're getting a bit tired of the contest and fewer and fewer people tune in every year and since the contest is settled through telephone polls now, it's pretty easy to see why the eastern block is over represented.

If we look at the top ten places in the 2007 contest it looks like this:

Serbia (Listen to it)
Ukraine
Russia
Turkey
Bulgaria
Belarus
Greece
Armenia
Hungary
Moldovia

As you see, the vast majority of the top ten songs this year are from the eastern parts of europe. The only exception really, is Greece who came in 7th place.

There are also very big difference in how music is composed, produced and listened to, if you compare the western parts of Europe and the eastern parts. The east has an entirely different tradition and it's not at all based on the same values as in the west. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, or good for that matter, I'm just stating that as a fact. And this of course is yet another reason why eastern europe wins the contest, considering they have more people tuning in, and they would never vote for a song from the western parts of europe since that type of music doesn't attract them. Fair and square.

So what is the solution to all of this?!

My suggestion is to either trash the entire contest and let the east take over it and run it if they want to, or divide the contest into east and west making it more fair for all contestants. Because on ehas to realice that in the old days, when the majority of the countries taking part where from western europe, the few countries from the east never had a chance. They where the laughing stock most often, since their music was so different, and that is situation that I think we don't want to come back to again, even if it's reversed.

And the past years, under the influence of the east, the original plan of competing with the best song has somehow been replaced with competing wiith the deepest song, and the one that means most to the people of the country. This has in turn led to songs about freedom, peace, anti war and so on, and the jury, being the people who watch, listen more to the lyricas and the meaning of the song that to the actual song itself. So I think it has become a much more political arena today which can be hear if you listen to the winning song.

But I really feel that we could trash it all, because there are other ways today to promote music and compete in music. And as I read on another blog today, young musicians today are more interested in getting their music up on MySpace than competing in the Eurovision Song Contest, so that kind of proves my point!

Sweden had a really good song with a great band, but it wasn't something that attracted the eastern European viewers so we lost the contest. That's just the way it is!

Sing Hallelujah

/ Andy

Vote Vote VOTE!

2007-05-09T15:44:00.000+02:00

So...it has become that time of the year again when to vote for the best swedish podcaster in a bunch of categories.

As I have stated in earlier posts the Polarbear Podcast has been nominated in a few of them, and I would now like to ask you - as a favour to me - to go over to Podradio.nu and vote for the Polarbear Podcast in all the categories that the show is nominated in.

I knows the website is in swedish, but it's very simple. Just work your way down the page and click on every radio button (on the left) that you see beside "Polarbear Podcast", in the different sections of the page. There should be 4 of them as a total.

Bästa musik (inkl mp3-blogg)
Bästa amatörkanal
Bästa originalkanal
Bästa kanal (total)

If you find more - great! After that, you just enter a valid email adress at the bottom and viola!

Next page is about spreading the word, and I would of course be very happy if you told all your friends about this too, and all you do is fill in your name at the top, then 5 different email addresses in the five different fields and finally a little message at the bottom from you to them.

Afdter that you should be getting a page thanking you for your participation. An email will be sent to the address you entered on page one. Click on the link in the email to verify your votes.
Now that is all there is to it!

PLEASE GO OVER AND VOTE NOW!!!!

Talk to you soon again.

/ Andy

Nominated!

2007-05-05T16:15:00.000+02:00

So it's awards season again. At least here in sweden. I think these awards are all very fun and the reason might be this: The Polarbear Podcast is nominated to the Swedish podcasting Awards 2007 in the following categories: Best Independant Podcast and Best Original Content. So of course I'm pro all these awards. I'm nominated God damn it!

The Swedish Podcasting Awards 2007 (or Svenska Podradiopriset 2007 as it is called in Swedish) is being hosted by Daytona, which is a web communications company in Stockholm who built, if not THE first, then at least one of the first swedish web 2.0 applications called podradio.nu, which is a directory focusing on swedish and scandinavian podcasts, built on a very smart label system which makes it easier to find and subscribe to a lot of great swedish podcasts. Or so they say at least. Personally I don't see the point in it, but then again I'm a hardcore Mac user and everyhting that isn't compatible with iTunes/iPod is frowned upon in my book. But evidently a lot of people digg the system because it is well used and very popular.

This year the official swedish podcasting association Swecasters, of which I happen to be the chairman, is one of the sponsors to the awards. We decided this year to throw in some pretty neat prizes in two of the categories, just to make things a bit more interesting and also get some awareness.

You might think it's a bit shady that these are the exact same categories that I am nominated in. Well, it's not that shady really because the decision to sponsor this event and the details surrounding that, was not my own. It was unanimously decided among the board of directors and to be quite honest most of the members in Swecasters are nominated in at least one of the two categories. That's just the way it is.
We want to sponsor the categories that are closest to home for us, and of course that is also where our members, including my self, are active. But I have decided to not accept the prize from us if I should win. I will gladly take the award and the honor but would be more than happy to pass on the prize to the next runner up.

If you're wondering what the prizes are you can checkout for yourself on the awards website.

Right now it's nomination time, but in a few weeks, I think mid may sometime, the actual voting will begin and I hope that you all will help me win the prize this year. The competition is tough, but if I can get enough of my loyal fans to support this cause I just might have a chance to win, which of course would be fun since I would have to live up to the promise I just made of not keeping the Swecasters sponsored prize for myself... Now just that alone is worth a vote, right???

I will get back to you both here and on the feed as soon as the voting starts and help you on the way. You see, it's a 100% swedish site!

I will talk to you all soon again and right now I have to record a show.

/ Andy

I would say...not!

2007-04-25T14:07:00.000+02:00

I just read on the website of Swedens leading tabloid, Aftonbladet, about a thing I just have to comment, because I am seeing a trend in this.

As you might see there is a very nice car in the image above. It's not mine, unfortunately, but it is a sportscar from Koenigsegg. A swedish designer, developer and manufacturer of extreme sportscars. One of these babies, worth around 6,5 million SEK (900 000 USD) in mint condition, just went off the road earlier today, and now Aftonbladet is jumping to the scene making a thing of it.

”The exclusive swedish sportscar venture Koeigsegg, has recieved yet a blow”...

...is what Aftonbladet writes, referring to the car that today skid off the road in a sharp turn as the driver was speaking on his cellphone. Aftonbladet is also refering to an older story about another Koenigsegg that crashed a few months ago, only hours after the owner had recieved it. That time the accident was partially caused by the driver being to unexperienced and not being able to handle the extreme power that this car delivers at just a touch of the pedal. This time it's more a question of the car being in the wrong place at the wrong time at the wrong speed.

”It could just as well have happened to a VW Golf”...

...says Christian Koenigsegg, founder and owner of the company who makes the car, and adds that the car this time hardly got a scratch. It just ended up off the road.

And I totally agree with him. I think it's sad that an independant newspaper (tabloid) like aftonbladet should be allowed to write like this. They try to make the a point in that this accident wouldn't have happened if it had been a "regular" car, which from what I read in other media is total bullshit. Any car going in that speed (not fast, but too fast) in that turn would have ended up in the ditch. I'm not releasing the driver from his responsibilities, but it has nothing to do with the car! In fact it was probably easier to try and stay on the road in this machine, built for extreme situations.

I wish that tabloids in sweden would stop bad-mouthing companies and especially people out of pure jealousy. I believe the Koenigsegg is an amazing sportscar, and I wish I could afford one myself, but it is a car and it's just as inclined to go off the road as any other car when handled incorrect, or end up in a crash. The car doesn't drive itself you know...! And why on earth would Koenigsegg have recieved a bad blow just because one of its buyers have skid off the road?!

This is not a paid promotion by Koenigsegg, but if they feel like lending me a car for my wedding day in return for these kind words, I might be interested in having a discussing with them!

So please, people, send this blogg post off to the guys at Koenigsegg and ask them to read it!

:-D

/ Andy

I'm off to Stockholm!

2007-04-22T01:27:00.000+02:00

I am freaking out! But in a positive way, and all this because of a two day unconference that we all like to call PodCamp!

Let me start from the beginning. I got an email about PodCamp Europe, stating that it was being held in Stockholm this year on june 12-13. (Stockholm is the capital of Sweden for those of you who didn't know - shame on you!) Now, Podcamp is this awesome unconference about new media and it's been held in a wide range of different cities by now, and the turn has finally come to Stockholm.

At first I was a bit hesistant about going since it was being held in the middle of a working week and I didn't know how I would get up there cause as you may know from listening to my recents episodes it's quite a trip up to the capital from down here in Skåne. I also didn't know where to sleep! You know, hotels cost money.

But then things satarted to fall in place. I registered on their website - for free - on wednesday, hoping that I would make it, but fearing that I'd have to loose on walk-over. I then got OK from my employer (who I tried to convince letting me go on behalf of the company but unfortunately that failed) out of the blue on thursday, who let me go as long as I did it as a personal thing taking out vacation days. So I got the clearance for two days of vacation, and then things really started looking good.

On friday I logged in and checked for flights to Sthlm, or to ARN as the code for the airport is, with SAS and found out that I had 22400 frequent flyer points in my "account" and that I could use these to pay for the trip. So I booked a flight that leaves on monday evening from Helsingborg and goes back again from ARN on wednesday evening and I didn't have to pay a single penny for it. Perfect!

I also got an SMS from my sister who lives in Sthlm saying that she'd love to have me over if I needed somewhere to crash. This came yesterday (saturday).

And now, just a few minutes ago I recieved an email from Christopher Penn of the Financial Aid Podcast who is hosting the entire event, saying that he'd like to have me on the list of organizers. Wow! I am moved by this and very honored and I told Christopher that I'd help out in any way I could to make this a great gathering!

So if you are reading this, and living in the vicinity of Stockholm (which means within the EU) and interested in new media of any kind, get your ass over to Stockholm on the 12-13 of june this year and hook up with me and the rest of the swedish podcasting elite, as we make PodCamp Europe 2007 the most unsafe place on earth.

Let's get geeky...BIG TIME!

I hope I will see you all there.

/ Andy

PS. Don't forget: the entire venue is totally FREE!

The swedes are free!

2007-04-17T10:31:00.000+02:00

I haven't before commented that much on international politics but today I thought I would. The reason is that two swedish citizens, Stefan, 38 and Jari, 34, where imprisoned in Iran after having taken tourist photographs at what Iranian authoraties claim to have been "sensitive sites".

The two men where sentenced to 3 years imprisonment for espionage, and just barely escaped the death sentance.

Stefan and Jari where down in Iran to train local building constructors new techniques how to make good concrete floors. Now, I don't know as of a fact if they were spying or not, but since the Iranian government has now decided to set them free I guess they have come to the conclusionthat they were infact not.

What I am a bit puzzled by, is why Sweden isn't demanding an official apology by Irans leaders for having falsely imprsoned two swedish citizens for more than 14 months! I can't understand why swedish diplomats are being so pussy about it. Are they afraid of Iranian military retaliation or what?

I think it is very strange that they at all have been able to imprison these men. I saw a documentary on swedish television a few months back on the subject, and from what that film showed it was pretty obvious that the two men and their entourage were completely innocent. They had been riding a car, saw a cool view, stopped the cars and took some awesome pictures. It was a beautiful scene. On the other side of the image (behind the photographers back) was a facility that evidently was some kind of military installment.

They should have read the signs...ok! I get that, so it wasn't the smartest thing to do, but just look at the pictures and you'll see that they don't resemble anything secret!

If you add to this the fact that they were treated like animals during their stay at the prison, not understanding the language and not getting treated the way they should have as foreign visitors, I think it's appauling that the swedish government hasn't demanded an apology!

What's wrong with you Reinfeldt?!

Well, I'd better go out for a walk and cool down now before I blow up. :-D

Talk to you soon again

/ Andy

Property tax abolishment

2007-04-10T11:38:00.000+02:00

So I promised you a personal comment regarding the current swedish governments descision to abolish property tax. Well, here we go then...

It's pretty clear than the big winners of this abolishment will be the people or companies owning larger properties. Properties that before where tax valued to enormous amounts every year, but from the new year will only cost 4.500 SEK per year in form of a "property fee", which is set equal to all, regardless of income. So the larger property - the more you'll benifit.

So there will be a lot of money saved for these people/companies, but since I am a strong believer of the capitalistic equation (which I talked about on the previous show, #91) I think that :

the government will still get some tax money back in form of increased VAT on things that people will buy now that they can afford it. VAT in Sweden is aqfter all 25% (no kidding!)
we will see an increase in job opportunities now that a lot of people will be spending more money creating a demand for more products, services etc. This will of course happen over a longer period of time.
even people who don't own their property will benifit from this, in form of lowered rent for example as a result of the abolished property tax.

So, all in all, I think everyone is a winner and that is what is important here. Ok, there are people and companies who will be bigger winners than others but that really doesn't matter the way I see it. I can save x amount of money each year and that's awesome, so what if my neighbour saves 2X in the same period. And if he does, he's probably payed 2 x [my house's market value] in the first place. I think you get the picture.

So that is my take on the property tax my friends!

/ Andy

Twit Twit Tweeet

2007-04-08T23:37:00.000+02:00

So, are you hooked too? With this new supercool mash-up they have decided to call Twitter I mean?! Everyone in the podisphere is talking about it, not always in kind words, but gee has this become the topic of the month. Just look at me...even I am blogging about it!

If you haven't heard of Twitter – which probably means you've either been to another planet for the past 6 weeks or you live in an area of the undeveloped world where finding food for the day is actually more important than the internet (odd place) – you have missed a revolution! Twitter is a mash-up between chatting or IM:ing and blogging. It's slower than chat but it's much faster than blogging.

So what is it exactly? Well, once you register and log in you will find your self on a web page asking one single question. "What are you doing now?" And this is the essence of Twitter, telling everyone about what you are doing right now, at this very moment, in very short sentences. So if I was signed in to Twitter now, I would write "Doing a blogg post about Twitter" and then when I was done I would write another line saying "Posting the post about blogging" , and then a few minutes later "Checking to see how many people have read my post about Twitter" and so on....

Twitter is a way to tell the world exactly what you are doing at a specific time, how trivial it might be. You are basically letting everyone into your own living room and letting them be a part of your every day life.

Sounds interesting???

It's F**KING stupid! I first heard about this on the Daily Breakfast with Fr Roderick and he was all worked up about it, and then later Adam Curry went on a halleluja mission for Twitter too, and since then I guess everyone has been talking about it and most people, even Knightwise on the GGP has been hooked on this new thing even though he hated the idea initially.

So as you might have figured out by now I think it's a god aweful waste of time, and totally stupid!

Let me tell you why...!

First of all I think that people who use Twitter are very self centred, screaming for attention and wanting everyone in the world to listen to them, if only for 2 seconds when they write about going to the loo. What makes these people think that anyone cares to cents about what they're up to.
Secondly, even if Twitter claims to be a social networking system / community and you can sign up as a friend or follower, I believe the only one reading your posts on Twitter is YOU. No one else gives a damn, execpt for maybe your mother or girlfriend/wife and I doubt you'll be giving away your Twitter-URL to them any time soon.
Thirdly, Why would I want to tell everyone about what I do all the time? I am litterally begging for people to invade my privacy and stalk me. Not that I think they will, but that is what I'm doing!
Fourthly, when will I get the time to sit down and write small stupid notes of what I'm doing all the time. I'm busy with other stuff, like living! OK, if I would have a butler who followed me every step in my life and did the twitting for me, but I have no time to stop every five minutes and twitt when I'm at home, or at work or podcasting etc. That would just break the chain of thought completely.
Fifhtly (do you say that?), What is the point? Why would people want to write and why would people want to read? I can't find an answer to that!

Ok, so by now you've checked Twitter out and perhaps found my Twitter-account (please let me know how) and you're asking yourself why I am barking down this tree when I have infact an account of my own. Well, as any good journalist I cannot comment on anything I haven't tried, so I opened an account, gave them all the information they need to send me unsolicited email in the future (also known as SPAM) and there I was, on the page reading "What are you doing now?"

I don't know?

"I am...

...writing a note in Twitter....

...perhaps...!"

What the hell am I supposed to write?! What could I tell people , right NOW, that they might find interesting?! Oh, but then I'm missing the point you say. I'm just supposed to write exactly what I'm doing, in that way create a little story of my life for everyone to share.
But WHO CARES?????? I can't write things about my own life that I couldn't care less about when it comes to others. There is no point!

So I made two or three entries in Twitter and then shut the page down and haven't been there since. I might be the only one not "getting" the hype in Twitter but in that case, let it be. I cannot find one single reason why I should waste any time at all putting these small notes in Twitter. Not one single reason! And I doubt that anyone out there is missing me...
I can however find a handful of reasons why I shouldn't, so I'll just stick with what I usually do in my spare time and that is waste about 2 hours infront of the TV, another half hour trying to solve a crossword puzzle, and then maybe 3 hours in front of the computer, like now, making blogg posts, recording podcasts and checking my email. You know...intelligent things instead! :-D

Have a great easter guys!
Tweet tweet

/ Andy

Bad language

2007-03-29T14:22:00.000+02:00

I was just reading a very interesting pictoral about all the failures that Apple has released over the years. It was published on E24 which is a financial website here in Sweden. I was appalled

What struck me as I was reading the piece was not how they bashed Apple, because face it...they have released one or two stupid products over the past 20 years. Instead I reacted over the extremely bad language used in the texts. It was as if the text had passed through every controlling instance without anyone even looking at it.

There was a fair share of misspelled words, bad grammar, to many borrowed words (from english) and, which I found most strange, a lot of missing words. I fired off an email to their editor in chief asking if they perhaps had a reporter on the staff with dyslexia problems, but I doubt that is the case.

Instead I think we are looking at a new trend, rising up in the shadow of User Generated Content (UGC) which we can find in bloggs, personal websites, podcasts and community sites like twitter, mysapce etc. People don't find the language to be as important anymore. Everything has to go so fast that you donät have time to actually check if you spell correctly.

I get this all the time when I point out to my son that his IM's are misspelled. "Well, they know what I mean..." Well...do they?! I wonder. Now, I have thought a lot about this and I am afraid that we are looking at a very dark future when it comes to communications. For the same reasons that we have believed that this new technology that we have today, will bring people together, I think we might actually see the opposite happen too. Anyway as long as we are left to writing messages.

Imagine yourself 800 million people communicating with each other and every single one of them going "Well, they know what I mean...". I can see some serious problems walking down that road. Is it strange that people come into disagreement online? I think by using the written word you miss out on a very important factor in our comunication and that is variation and gradients. The spoken language most of us have is often very colourful and very good to describe things, wether it's objects or feeleings etc. And so is the written language if used in a proper way. But if you dont't give a damn about how your written words are transieved how can you expect the recipient to be able to interpret your original feelings, emotions, intentions etc...!?

I had a situation like that happen to me a while back on a forum, when I posted a request for help for a third party, in getting a podcast since she was unable herself due to technical matters. My intention was to just check if someone out there, who was feeling rich, cared to chip in to help this forum member get the show by sending her CD's instead. It was all in good faith and I was just hoping to hear from a few faithful listeners to the show (not mine) who felt like helping out.

Instead I got flamed for a week by people reading a lot more or a lot less into my post, accusing me for being shady and trying to make money off the forum members. I tried my best to explain to the angry mobb of my intentions but it was too late. So this shows how important it is to be VERY clear in what you write and not get a single thing wrong. Because out there, the mobb is not very forgiving, and what you might mean as a joke can for instance be seen as offensive by someone. It also shows, based on what I wrote, how important it is to use proper punctuation for example. Put the dots and commas in the right places dudes!

So I think it's very important that we maintain our high class language for as long as we can. I try my best here on the blogg, even though I write in a second language, and hopefully I succeed. But then again I read it through 3 or 4 times before actually posting it. And even then there is always at least one small error that makee it through the spell checking.

So be careful with what you write!
People might actually take your words for it!

/ Andy

Hasta la Vista!

2007-03-22T09:27:00.000+01:00

If you haven't been tuned in on the geek market for the past months or so, you might have missed the fact that Microsoft has released Vista, their new super operating system that would revolutionize the industry.

As you all know I listen to a lot of podcasts and many of them are tech shows like TWIT, Global Geek Podcast, MacCast and so on and recently I've been picking up comments on other shows too, like the Daily Breakfast, related to Windows Vista.

Everywhere I look and listen everone is saying the same thing. Vista sucks! The two things that made people interested in actually upgrading to vista was first of all the GI (Graphic Interface) which is much cooler than on XP. And I have to admit it does look better, but if you take a second and look at the system requirements you very soon realize that in order to use vista the way it is supposed to be used, you need a new computer. And you even need a new advanced computer because Vista doesn't save it's energy and needs all the process power that it can get. And the second thing was the new security system.

Now, you're all probably wondering now, why I am going on about Vista. I'm a Mac guy right?! Of course I am and one of the reasons why I am a Mac user is products like Vista. Or the way Microsoft has presented vista. Here are a few of the reasons why I couldn't care less about Vista:

Vista doesn't work well on older machines but instead demands new technology to work
Vista doesn't work well with 3rd party hardware and software especially older ones
Vistas new cool look is what we've had on OSX for over 6 years now
Vistas new features are what we've had on OSX for over 6 years now
Vistas new super security feature is so annoying that people tend to turn it off
Vista is expensive

I have been contemplating the idea of getting myself an additional PC - for different reasons
- but I was waiting for Vista to release, since I wanted the absolute latest edition of the Microsoft Operating system, especially since the early comments on the system was rather impressive. Last week I bought myself a new computer. It was a Mac Mini 1,83 Ghz with a Superdrive and OSX 10.4.8 Tiger preinstalled.

Get the point?

From everything I've heard from users who actually have bought and installed Microsoft Vista I decided on yet again going with a Mac. Doesn't that say it all?! Ok, so I'm a Mac fan and probably more inclined to choose a Mac than a PC, but everything I heard just put me off. And I just don't understand all these windows geeks out there opening the champagne bottles over how cool Vista looks and feels. It's nothing new!

When it comes to stability, performance, security and inuitivity there is only one operating system according to me that is worth looking at and that is Macintosh OSX. Some could argue that Linux is right up there with OSX and they might be right, but I've never had the opportunity to try out Linux so I just can't have an opinion on that.

So to all you Microsoft Windows XP users out there:
Before you buy all the bullshit served to you by Microsoft regarding Vista, take a look at a Mac next time you're shopping for a computer, and compare the specs. And if you really miss Windows that much you should know that Windows XP (and soon Vista) runs natively on any new Mac. Not emulated ... native!

I wish this was a paid endorsement!

So that was my take on Windows vista.
I hope you have a good day! :-)

/ Andy

Boys, Girls...."Borls"!

2007-03-21T13:51:00.000+01:00

I just read an interesting article on aftonbladet.se regarding a new ice cream product that GB Glace has released called "Girlie". The newspaper says that the swedish population is in rage over it... I hadn't even heard of it.

The icecream is in the shape of a star, with a plastic stick filled with glitter water and is targeting the younger female population and this is what is angering the swedish polulation. As I have mentioned many times both here on the blogg and in the podcast there is in Sweden an hysterical approach to equality. And this is the what people are having troubles with - ice creams!

Because according to the politically correct stand point there should be no differences between boys and girls and we should never push a sterotype on to our children but instead let them grow up in total equality. So a pink, sparkling icecream is in every sense of it a stereotype of what a girl likes and should therefor not be allowed to be sold.

What rubbish!

I have a daughter, age 8, who has never had anything forced upon her when it comes to stereotypes. Among her toys you will find equal amount of traditional "boy" toys and "girl" toys, because she has always been allowed to buy whay SHE wanted. If she wanted a car, she got a car. If she wanted a doll the next time she got a doll etc. But lately she has turned the scales a bit towards the more traditional (and stereotypical) girlie toys very much focusing on dolls, who she cares a lot for and treats like it's her babies.

Wait a minute...!

She's a girl... Maybe that means that she will grow up to be a woman and maybe even a mother one day, and maybe these games are a way for her to prepare herself for her adult life. Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with stereotypes? Maybe it's just the way of nature. We spend our child years mentally preparing ourselves for our adult life. Not for society itself but for the biological adult life.

Every time I have a discussion with an ultra feminist - the kind who basically would like to see 50% of all children getting delivered by men - I often ask how they plan to change the behaviour of animals. In the animal kingdom a majority of the male and female creatures have different jobs based on their physical skills. Why is that so difficult for human ultra feminists to adapt?

But going back to the Ice Cream... When my daughter saw this ice cream her first responce was "Dad, can I have one of those"...
I haven't told her to think so, she just loves pink. She always has since the first day she could seperate colours. She always preferred the pink ball over the blue one, and the pink ribbons over the yellow ones etc. She loves the colour pink. I haven't told her to like pink, cause personally I hate it! So she has by her own will, decided she likes that colour, and also given the other "functions" this ice cream has it's a given one the next time we go shopping for a treat.

It has nothing to do with gender.
It has nothing to do with stereotypes.
It has nothing to do with the fact that many women around the world make less money than men on the same job.

It does however have something to do with taste and many girls, like my daughter, likes pink things! I think it's because woman are programmed to like stuff like that more, since they are (generally speaking) more soft, tender, loving etc, than men are. Men prefer the hard things cause nature has made us tough! God knows I'm not, but anyway.

So I applaud GB Glace for giving all the small girls in this country the "G irlie" ice cream. I hope you sell a shit load of them and I will do my best to help you! Do they come in 100 piece boxes?

And to all the ultra feminists of this country: Please, loosen up and study nature BEFORE you turn everyone into androgynous nobodies!

/ Andy

2007-03-20T09:39:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I recieve comments that I want to address in a post by their own and this is such a post. It's regarding an old post I made questioning the existance of God, by actually asking a few questions to prove me wrong in my disbelieves.

No one gave me any answers that would actually prove such an existance but I did get a comment yesterday from someone who had a few counter questions and I thought I'd present them and my answers to them here.

1) What is the basis of your belief that there is something "'out there' affecting us?" That seems like a fairly vague idea to express as a belief. Are you meaning something more specific by that?

I find satisfaction in the thought, shared by many religious people infact, that we are not in control of this universe. The thought that "something" else is affecting what goes on here on this little pile of dust we call earth is rather appealing. Now this is of course nothing substancial but merely a method to rock my own cradle as I try to grasp the magnitude of my own existance.
But I have played around with the idea that we are in a prestate of a higher existance, and those of us who have reached this or these states (the eastern religions might be on to something calling it Nirvana) may have some affect on the rest of us.
As a regular Joe I know of only three dimensions, struggling with the thought of time being the fourth, but what if there are many more, which has been proven in theory by scientists like our good old Einstein and my personal favorite Stephen Hawking. If so maybe death as we see it is only a way to move between these dimensions. As a citizen of the 4th, 5th or 6th dimension the body can no longer follow and we are therefor leaving it behind us on earth.
Now I realize that all this seams very new age compared to my original post, but I am merely presenting an explanation to your question why I had mentioned something that might be "out there affecting us".

2) Again I would have to level a charge of vagueness against the invocation of the word "dimension," a much abused term in spiritual circles.

Well, I think I already made my definition clear in the last answer. But I agree that it is misused many times.

3) What reason, besides wanting it to be so (a want that I also share), do you have to believe that we survive our deaths?In my opinion, a belief should be held only after careful judgement of evidence and not accepted simply because we like the idea or that it makes us feel more comfortable living in this universe.

Now this is going to sound all mumbo jumbo, but I have met a few people in my life who have experienced contact with people who we define as dead. And why I tend to believe what these people have told me is because I have myself on two different occassions in my life had experiences which I could not explain in any other way than being in contact with the dead. Ok, so you can look upon me as a freak now, but when you've had experiences like I have you can't ignore them, but I refuse to believe that all this is the work of God, since he has on niether of these occasions been mentioned or had any part of it.

So I believe, based on my own experiences, that we pass over when we die. We do not go to heaven according to me, but we do move on. During a brief period of time our "soul" is stuck between these places, which I refer to as dimensions, and it is at this point that perceptive living people may make contact. It's all about the sixth sense. I even believe having read somewhere that there are scientific proof for the existance of such a communication.

So with this I leave you, having to make your own mind up about what we are here for and what happens when we're done, but I am convinced that the life we live here on earth is only a forstate to something else. Not necessarily better, but just different. And I am also convinced that this has nothing what so ever to do with a God of any kind. That is just mankinds way to easily explain the things we can not through the little science that we know, since we have only scratched the surface of this knowledge. And I would be amazed if we ever learn enough to understand it all. Maybe we are not supposed to!

Thanks for the questions Zalmond!

/ Andy

Kindergarten mentality in 2007

2007-02-19T22:18:00.000+01:00

I know a girl, let's call her 'Marie', who works at a company not far from here. This company has many great policies which they expect the employees to follow, but there is one policy that makes me a bit fustrated every time I hear about it.

According to swedish work law a company has the rights to demand a note from your doctor stating that you are infact ill if you are home for more than one day. You see the first day you get nothing payed at all, but from day 2 through day 14 the company has to pay you 80% sick leave, which of course is a dear cost for them since you're not working.

Now the other funny thing about this law is that your doctor is not obliged to give you such a note if he or she doesn't feel like it. Please note that I am not saying anything about you really being sick or not. They can, regardless of your condition, say that they do not wish to write such a note, and they can blame it on to much work load, or not having enough pencils in the office or basically anything cause no-one really cares.

So this brings me up to two different dilemmas in this, which makes me very angry every time I hear of this policy.

Dilemma 1) If you are sick at home, from stomach flu let's say, how much energy do you have to get your sorry ass off to the doctors office in the first place? How many people with repeated vommiting situations, fever and god knows what are capable of getting themselves off to the doctor's? And I also don't see the point in it. The company is supposed to look out for the well being of it's employees and that can hardly be the case if you chase a sick person to the doctors office.

Dilemma 2) You are sick, as above, but have managed to haul yourself off to the doctors office just to learn that the doctor of the day has no plan of writing a note for you. And this you will find out after having sat in the waiting room for maybe 2 hours in which time you will have had to vommit repeated times.

So anyway you turn this story it just doesn't make sense. If the company has the rights to demand a note, the doctors should have the obligation to write them. In other cases the two systems will just work against each other. And the reason, by the way, to why the doctor most probably will NOT write the note for you is that he wants to keep the stats over sick people down in his area, so that he can prove to the medical board that he's doing a fantastic job.

If you are sick for like a week I can understand that the employing company wants to know what the heck is wrong with you, but not after one day, that's stupid!

I've told 'Marie' to explain these dilemmas to her managers, in a very calm and explanatory manner, but she means that the reason for them having the rule in the first place is that the guys out in the shop are not very trustworthy and they would gladly skip work to get a day off, and just call in sick.

She somehow understands where her managers are coming from in this matter, which I don't! Just because the guys in the shop are morons doesn't mean that everyone in the office is too. They could have seperate rules for the two departments...!?

Whatever. I just thing it's a whacky policy!

Talk to you soon again, as soon as I'm feeling better.

/ Andy

I am amazed!

2007-01-28T22:14:00.000+01:00

Statistics always lie to you, don't they? Well, the way I see it stats are only a matter of distorting the truth to the point where you can show people exactly what you want to show them. Who cares about the truth?

Doing a podcast and being concerned about listener stats is one way to get fooled. How do you measure most accurately? What should you measure? When should you measure? etc...! For long I have been looking at what stats a specific show got, in order to rate my "success". Suddenly today it strikes me that this is - of course - totally daft. Let me give you an example:

If I put out a show today, it will be listened to (downloaded) by x people during the first three days. In two months the number of people who have downloaded that specific show will be x+y, since the show is always up there and can be downloaded at any point. I can't know when people will listen to it. It's up to them and totally beyond my control. And that's what's so cool with podcasting! A radio station however gets x amount of listeners during the show, then nothing! They only have 'x'. I have a nifty little 'y' too! :-D

Up until now I have stared myself blind at x and cheered or cried at that variables value. It struck me the other day that I should be looking at something completely different really. Like how many listened to the show last week (regardless of which episode), or during the last month. So starting now I will check stats according to this instead.

Last week for instance 743 people downloaded the Polarbear Podcast! That's great. I love it. That's 743 people who took their time and downloaded the show, hopefully to listen to it. And then, if they are listening to show #36 or #83 doesn't really matter! They are listening to the show and being a part of the community!

I just love stats, when you find a way to read them so they coincide with your own egocentric wishes. Distorting the truth almost...!

It's amazing, isn't it?!

/ Andy

Is it just me?

2007-01-25T07:33:00.000+01:00

I was driving to work today, for the first time in a week actually. I had to let my body rest at lest one day! On the way, I got in contact with this car, or however I should put it. I have on one earlier ocassion been in contact with this exact same car and driver and that time around, it ended up with me sending him an email.

Now what is all this? Well, basically it's just me being an asshole, but I can't help myself. When I get annoyed at things around me in my everyday life, I tend to react on it, and at least TRY to do something about it.
So a few weeks back I had this previous encounter with this driver in a roundabout here in Helsingborg. To make a long story short he was entering a roundabout, driving in the right lane, which is clearly marked to only turn right, but then suddenly going around the thing to the left causing a minor commosion and a lot of confusion among us other drivers. He used no turn signal or anything, but just turned. (And all this was planned I assume, since he probably wasn't up to waiting in the left lane cue)
Later on, just a few hundred meters furter down the road, and at this point I was lying right behind him, he turned right in an intersection when lying in the left lane and without turn signals... Needless to say I was pretty upset at the time, ESPECIALLY since the car had a big company logo on the side!

I emailed LP Måleri and told them to check this guys drivers license for a valid date or to see if he at all had one, since the stunts he pulled could have caused not only one, but two accidents. But as you might guess, I never got a return email, which I think sucks!
What kind of company wouldn't react to an email like that? Haven't they heard of badwill. I can promise you that the next time i'm going to be looking for a painter (since that is their line of business) I definitely won't choose them! And I will try my best to convince my friends not to either...

So this morning I come across the same car again, with the same dude driving it too, and guess what. Once again - in the same intersection as the last time - he confuses the shit out of his fellow drivers by not using his turn signals. Once again there could have been an accident but thank god nothing happened. What is with this guy. Is he above the law or something?
I'm not saying that turning without a turn signal is the biggest crime in the world, but it's so easy to do so there isn't really any excuse for not doing it. Do you see what I mean?
If this dude rides around in the company car, with big logos all over the side and hood, shouldn't he be a bit more concerned not only about the safety around him but also about his companies reputation?

I was planning on writing them again, but what difference does it make. It's almost ridiculous, but still annoying enough for me to be sitting here telling you about it. I can almost promise you that the guy driving the car is the same guys checking the emails at that company. Maybe he's even the owner, what do I know, but if he is he should be more concerned about what he's doing, since his traffic attitudes are affecting his companies reputation!

I hope he reads this!

Drive safely now.

/ Andy

Who wants to be me?

2007-01-16T08:30:00.000+01:00

Just recovering from the recent storm another blizzard hit me, but on a more personal level this time. Someone out there, on the internet, is acting as me!

I know, this sounds almost paranoid but it all started with me getting an email from a dude, who had placed an ad on blocket.se which is the largest personal trade website in sweden, giving me the answers to a bunch of questions regarding the product he was selling.

In his email I could also read the senders email since he just did a regular reply. In the original email a guy with the same name as me had stated my email address for contact. Now at first I thought this was no big deal since sometimes you make mistakes and so on, but then came a second email from a different seller on blocket and then a third and so this went on. I even got an email containing a message from "Me" saying that the email "I" left accidently was wrong the correct one is... and then my EXACT email address. OK, so now this is starting to get scary.

In all the emails there is a cell phone number to this dude who pretends to be me so I tried to call it, just to find out that that was a fake number. It went nowhere! In another amial there was yet another number and I tried to do a search for this one and I got a hit on hitta.se (which is like the white pages). It is registered to a guy with the exact same name as me (and that isn't too strange in itself since there is aorund 150 people in this country who share my exact name) and an address in Stockholm. There was also an additional 2 telephone numbers in the listing and I tried calling those too. One of them made a strange ringtone and an answering machine went in. One of them was out of order according to the voice message. The third one, no-one answered on...

So what do you think?!?
Is someone trying to f**ck me over big time or what?!

I have been in contact with both my IP and the blocket.se to get there comments, but as of now they haven't come up with anything strange. For a moment I thought this guy might have recieved the same email address as me, by misstake, but this doesn't seem likely.

It's a bit alarming since I got one email asking when the hell I was planning on picking up the stuff I had bought and when the money was coming!

So for now I am still in the dark, but I will keep you posted on the outcome of this. Hopefully it's all just one big mistake, even if I am seriously starting to doubt it!

/ Andy

We're ok!

2007-01-15T19:04:00.000+01:00

I've never experienced winds like that. But then again I live in Sweden where it seldom blows more than 20 m/s, even on the windiest day of the year.

But the hurricane passed us and left destruction in its path. Some 45000 households are still without electricity since trees and such have fallen over air led cables and such. But in our little part of the country, and the city, things never got that very exciting really. Sure, the wind was blowing like never before, but I felt all safe and cosy here at home knowing that my daughter was ok too, even if she was on a sleep-over too far away from home...and me!

The hurricane hit the shores at 8 or 9 in the morning and by 2 pm things started to calm down again. It was still blowing pretty hard but no big deal. And for us...we didn't leave the house at all that day. We thought we were safer just riding it out, sitting indoors and playing board games with the kids. We actually had a pretty nice time!

So now I've experienced a hurricane with wind speeds of around 33 m/s too. I have a track record from the past of sleeping through not one, but two earthquakes (on one of my US-trips). One of them measured 4.5 and the other 3.9 on the Richter scale, but that didn't stop me from sleeping! So now I add hurricane to the list too.

Well, gotto fix 2.000 other things now, so I just might get out a show tomorrow!

/ Andy

Hold on to your hat!

2007-01-13T19:41:00.000+01:00

According to the latest weather report there is a hurricane moving in towards sweden tomorrow morning, expecting to hit the coast of Halland in the morning and move down into Skåne (where I live) later in the morning at around 9 or 10 am.

Meteorologists have stated that we can be expecting wind speeds of up to 35 m/s in the gusts and at least 28-32 m/s for the rest.

This should of course be taken very seriously and therefor we have taken in everything from the court yard into the garage and secured whatever we had to leave outside. We don't want wake up tomorrow from a table flying in throught the kitchen window!

I'll get back to you again as soon as the storm has passed and the internet connections have been restored (since I'm counting on them to fail during the storm).

Hopefully no-one we know is going to get hurt, but I am a bit nervous since my daughter is on a sleepover at her friends place and I would really prefer having her here. Buit I guess she'll be alright!

Talk to you soon again!

/ Andy

Why is it wrong to make money in this country?

2007-01-12T10:03:00.000+01:00

A fresh study, presented on aftonbladet.se shows that swedish corporate executives make 7,1 million SEK per year as an average. That's a lot of money. In USD we are talking about 1.000.000 per year. I wouldn't mind having a sallary like that, but that's beside the point.

Swedish media and swedish people paint this out to be one of the most unfair facts of all times. It is considered terrible that these CEOs make this much money while regular workers only make a percentage. The CEO sallaries have increased by 56% over the past few years while the workers sallaries only have increased by 10%.

So right now media is aiming all it's envy towards these CEOs. You see, in Sweden it is considered a BAD thing to get rich by working. For instance: If you start a successfull company that gives you a great fortune or if you get head hunted for a top job you will be targeted by media and hung out for being a capitalistic carnevour.
Because accoring to the genereal opinion here - and sorry if I might be generalizing a bit now - you are supposed to feel sorry for the man on the floor, working 8-5, and getting home to his wife and family for dinner every evening, while the CEO who makes a good living is the bad guy.

There are only three accepted ways you can make money in Sweden:

Win the lottery, prefferably "BingoLotto" or "Triss"
Become a sporting profile (where after you probably move to Monaco for tax reasons, but people still love you somehow and still call you "swedish"!)
Start writing music and get rich through that.

Now these three options are the only ones considered to be honest. These people have "sacrificed so much" to get to where they are today so they "deserve" it. That does not apply to the lottery winner of course but luck is something that is totally OK, so you get away with it because of that.

Now, on the other hand spending 10 years at a university, eating only noodles for the entire time, living in a crappy dorm room to get a position where you are expected to sacrifice your family, friends and spare time and, in addition to all that also take the wrap if something goes wrong, is not considered to be an honest way of making a living.

But I have to agree to that some of these pay checks are outrageous. There is no logic explanation to why the CEO of Scania for example - Leif Östling - should go home every year having earned an additional 25 million SEK (3,5 million USD). It's a bit over the edge I think.
But I also think that it's pretty obvious that the executives in a company should be making more money than the workers on the floor.

I read an article not long ago where this exact problem was discussed and the author said something about "the worker being prepared to change sallaries with the ceo:s any day". What a load... Of course he would but would he also be prepared to take the back side of the job. I am thinking about the long hours, the responsibility, the sacrifice of family and friends, the lack of spare time, the risk of loosing your job in a day, no union to back you up and so on?

I doubt it!

And you often hear the claim that it is the workers who "make" the company what it is. I even hear that here at work, and to some extent that is true, but if the executive board didn't steer the ship in the right direction and make wise decissions, those workers would be out of a job! And making those decisions takes a lot of years of experience and a good education...!

The thing is this. In sweden we have a fantastic system where everyone, regardless of race, religion, ethnic or financial background, has the right to a good education. Up until 9th grade it's even compulsory. And as for university studies, everyone is granted the rights to take cheap state loans to finance their education making it possible for everyone to get a good education. So what the f**k are these envious people complaining about. They had the chance to be one of those making the big money but they chose to not do that, out of laziness, fear, lack of interest or what not.

I just think it's so stupid wasting time and energy going after the CEOs all the time. Set up high standards for them - sure! Let them prove their worthiness - sure! But don't gun them down just cause they make a few bucks! Most people wouldn't be prepared to take their jobs for less. That's just hte way it is...

Personally I chose to pursue a career in graphic design. Nothing glamorous, but it's fun! And I chose to do that, knowing that it probably wouldn't give me the big bucks. I could have chosen another path, but I didn't. And I'm content with that.

Gotto get back to my job now so my CEO can enjoy his 1.000.000 crowns per year!

/ Andy

Get your act together!

2007-01-11T16:03:00.000+01:00

Have you ever ended up, feeling like an embarrassed chimp (or a moron), just because you don't have access to the inside information?

Now this might all seem very cryptic, but what I am reffering to happens quite often to me, and it so damn annoying! To illustrate this, let me paraphrase a phone call I just had with a local racket club.

Riiing...!

ME: Hi, my kid wants to start playing badminton. How does one go around doing that?
HIM: How you play badminton??
ME: No, he wants to become a member of the club and start practicing.
HIM: OK, so you need a court?
ME: No, I want to know where and how you sign up for the training classes in badminton.
HIM: OK; in that case you'll have to call the badminton club
ME: OK, I thought I had, what's their number?
HIM: I donno, let me check.

30 seconds later

HIM: [reads up the number]
ME: But that IS the number I called
HIM: No, this is the number for booking a court
ME: Maybe so, but never the less it's the number I called
HIM: Well, call them at that number and they can help you.

We hang up. I call the number, not sure if I perhaps just dialed a very similar one before. But the same guy picks up again.

HIM: But I just gave you the number to the club. You should call and to talk to them.
ME: And that was the number I called!
HIM: But this is the...
ME: ...booking office for the courts. I know! Do you have any other number to them?
HIM: No, but try again tomorrow, cause they're not there this late. They always transfer their calls to us when they're not there.
ME: ...OK...and you couldn't have told me this before? And why fuss about me calling the wrong number if you knew that they transfered their calls?
HIM: humph duh, bye!

ASSHOLE!

See what I mean! He knew a lot of things surrounding their business over there, that he took for granted that I knew about too. I didn't know they were only there certain hours. I didn't know they transfered their calls at other times and so on! Why couldn't he just have said somthing along the line of this, when I asked about training:

"Oh, in that case you need to talk to the Club. They can be reached between the hours of A and B on this and that number... Ok, it was the same number that you called. Well they transfer their calls..."

It would have been so easy. Instead he makes me feel lika a moron for not knowing their inside information. He makes me feel like I'm in his way and as if I am bothering him with the "wrong" questions. He should be fired!

Someone once told me to always explain things to your customers or clients as if they were kids. Take nothing for granted, and expect that they know nothing - from the start! Then, as the conversation moves on, you will find out what the customer does and doesn't know.

It has helped me tremendously and hopefully I have never made one of our clients feel like a moron, and I think it's something everyone should have in mind when answering the phone. The person calling does NOT necessarily know how your business works, or your family either for that matter if the call is made to your home. Sometimes the caller isnät sure exactly how to ask about a thing.

I work at a publishing firm called Mentor Communications. In my role I do the design on two different magazines. When people call me they are expecting to reach me, in my role at the magazine they read and are familiar with. In their world the magazine is all they care about during the contact with us. So when I answer the phone with the words "Mentor Communications..." I expect they might be a bit starteled and feel confused, since they might be expecting a different answer like "Fast Food" or "Recycling" which are the names of the magazines. Therefor I am always prepared to explain this if I hear even the slightest hesitation i the callers voice. I can say "Did you call regarding Fast Food or Recycling", and they can easily hang to that line and continue their original query. "Ah, yes...."

So I urge all of you out there to be kind to callers and expect of them that they know nothing about your business. In this way they don't have to end up feeling like morons. And a potential client/customer who feels good about having called you is a happy one! And that's just the way you like them, right?!

Have a great weekend!

/ Andy

What diet am I on now?

2007-01-10T10:15:00.000+01:00

The holidays are over, and it's time - once and for all - to get rid of all this extra weight that I carry around every day since a few years back!

Now this shit isn't easy! It takes a lot of will power and a lot of determination to suddenly NOT eat all that lovely food that you're used to, and lay off the soft drinks.

I have to admit. I'm NOT on a diet. Of any sort! I don't believe in diets. I think you just gain all the weight you loose as soon as you're done, and maybe even more. No, I believe in changing your way of life! So what I am doing now to loose about 15 kilos before my wedding this summer, is to:

1) Lay off soft drinks.
I used to consume about 1 liter of coke a day as an average. That is about 7 liters per week or almost 30 liter per month. As you might understand this is a grotesque amount of sugar and other shit that my body definetely doesn't need to survive. This part of the deal is going great! I've quit! I still like it and still long for it and eventually I'll allow myself to have a glass here and there, but not 30 liters per month!

2) Start moving around
Since I normally drive the kids to school it's so easy to stick with the car even during the weeks that they don't live with us. This has to stop. I will be getting out the bike as soon as the weather allows it. I will not however be a slave to the bike and ride it regardless of the weather for instance. But if it's ok I'll take the bike. Or I'll walk to work. With a fresh podcast in my earphones I'll be there in no-time! As of now I've started taking the dog for walks more often than before and it's a start. Baby steps...!
The plan is to start training on a more serious level as soon as my back is strong enough to handle it, but right now I have problems just walking the dog. My back just can't handle the pressure at this time. I am planning on joining some kind of light excerscise group and see if that gets me where I want.

3) Reduce the portion sizes
While eating dinner I will try to reduce the size of portions and only eat one protion even if it tasted delicious and be content with that! This will hopefully make my stomach decrease in size slightly giving me hunger satisfaction earlier in the future. This is a long ball and nothing that happens over night. But I've started at least and I'm trying to be mentally aware of it at all time!

4) Not eat candy...as often!
I am a sucker for candy, as you might know. But as of the new year I onlyl eat candy on the weekends and in sensible amounts too. It's hard on the popcorn, since I just love that stuff, but I've managed this far and I am confident in that I will succeed in this plan too!

So with these 4 steps I am planning on loosing 15 kilos before the 1st of july 2007. If I will succeed, I don't know, but even if I only loose 5 kilos it's a step in the right direction. My big problem is that I constanly seek rewards and for me eating has become one. And a very efficiant one too, for that matter. But this plan forces me to seek rewards (and I am talking about chemical rewards now) elsewhere. I don't snuff anymore, but otherwise that would have been an option. I'll just have to start doing crack or something! :-D

Well, now you all know - and that is the reason for telling you this really, so I can't back down - what I will be focusing on 2007 and it makes me happy that I know that you guys will be cheering me on while I take one day at a time and do my best on my road to weight loss!

Talk to you soon!

/ Andy

I'm on winter vaccation...

2007-01-03T11:37:00.000+01:00

...but I see no snow!

And how boring isn't that! I was planning on having the kids home from day care this week so we could play around in the snow and try out their new Snowracers that they got for christmas this year (finally), but up until now all sweden has had to offer is wide stretches of grass and green and not a sight of snow!

Now this is of course no-ones fault but maybe our own if you want to believe the climate scientists that tell us that we are screwing up the environment. But never the less, it is a bit sad that all my plans for this week have gone down the drain due to one simple variable - frosen water.

So what are we going to do this week?

Well, yesterday I took the kids up to my parents "summer" place (or should you call it "vacation home" or what?) where we met up with my brothers family too, and of courrse my parents, and had a nice day of chit-chatting. It's amazing how fast the kids grow. My brother has a son who is 7 months younger than my eldest and he seams to have injected grwoing fluid or something. He's not very tall for his age perhaps, but he gets bigger every time we meet anyway.

And today my son is having a friend over, in a few minutes, and we're planning on doing a few practical things before they tear the house down, like going to EKO-hallen for CD-sleeves and marker pens. Something I need for the show, especially now when I'm sending weekly downloads of Keith and the Girl to a listener in Bahrain... Don't ask!
I also need to pick up a few other things, like hair gel (yeah, I'm vain!), "power cord splitters" or what the heck you call them in english, and a bunch of other stuff they have in store. I think I'll be taking the kids along for the ride, cause then we can finish it off by go to the Burger King across the street for some lunch. They haven't had junk food like that for ages. Not since last year actually... :-)

Then we (Alex and I) are planning to put out a brand new episode of his podcast tomorrow. We'll see how it all works out but hopefully there will be a new show out by tomorrow evening. You can check it out at http://alexopappa.libsyn.com

Well, gotto get the house ready for WWIII since Alex's friend is arriving any minute now!

Write to you soon again.

/ Andy

Happy New Year

2007-01-01T16:38:00.000+01:00

Hello you, and welcome to the year of 2007!

As of late last night I released my very first videocast on the Polarbear Podcast feed, and I think, for being the very first time I do anything with the video format, it was pretty OK. Maybe not the most exciting film in 2006 and maybe a little dull since I'm not actually in the movie myself, but hey, you've gotto start off somewhere. I think there will be more videocasts in the future so there will be more than enough time to get good at that too.

Last night Marie and I stood watching the citizens of Helsingborg burn a ridiculous amount of money on fireworks. I'm not complaining because it was a spectacle (caught on film by the way) and very beautiful. The show started at around 10 pm and went on till about 1 am today, with an incredible peak at midnight. I was a bit astonished that people starting firing away as early as 10 pm but then Marie came up with the genius idea that it might be for the smaller kids who can't be up until midnight. They too should get a little fireworks.

As we stood there watching all this and hearing the almost deafening sounds of the rockets explosion I came to think about people who have been through war in one way or the other. They must get flashbacks when they her the sound. It could just as well have been bombs you know. And listening to the sound from that perspective it was pretty frightening. But for us up here in Scandinavia and for many other countries this is the sound of joy and celebration, and thank god for that.

People in this country complain a lot about not having too much money left over after taxes, and I can agree with that to some extent, but seeing the skies light up yesterday evening I couldn't help but think "Oh, but this they can afford..."
I can't even grasp how many thousand and thousands of kronor that people had spent on fireworks. And it gets worse every year. Worse in the sense that it escalates and becomes more and more for each year. I thought the fireworks of the millenium New Years Eve was extreme, and so it should have been, but yesterday was even more.

I've never seen the point in buying fireworks really. Oh, but don't get me wrong. I love watching it, but I just don't see why I should spend all that money and just burn it up, when...hold on now...people around me do it anyway. I can just free ride on their savings and get a fantastic show without spending a dime. Ok, so I might be a little cheap sometimes, but fireworks is really one of those things I can live without and considering you litterally blow up the money I don't feel like spending it on that.

We did however put a bit extra money on our dinner yesterday. Coeur de filet provencale on a bed of gratinated potatoes, a side of sautéd mushrooms and a tomato and onion sallad. That's also a way to easily spend some money, and just as fast as fireworks too by the way, but it tastes better - in my mouth anyway! And I LOVE the cooking part of it! Not that this dish is very advanced but the result is always great and very appreciated as long as you have good ingredients, which also the makes the shopping part of the meal fun. Walking around in the food store trying to find the best meat, and the freshest vegetables and so on.

Well, gotto get everything together for the arrival of the kids tomorrow! I have planned fondue for their first dinner, and I think that too will be appreciated - at least by the kids.

Back again soon I hope.

/ Andy

As it appears to us

2006-12-25T15:13:00.000+01:00

Just managed to get myelf through the big annual event of Christmas. The holiday that I so look forward to every year, but for a reason I can't really explain. Because every year I get equally dissapointed.

Recently I've started wondering what really lies behind all the hysteria that surrounds Christmas, and maybe we are just taken in by the memories of our childhood. Because back then, it was magical. And as I remember it every Christmas was perfect. The snow came every year like the post in the mail, and suddenly, when Christmas Eve came along everyhting was set - all the food, the decorations etc, and it had all been done without any participation on my behalf, so it just had to have been magic, right?!

Today I realize the difference in being a kid and a grown up. When I was a kid my parents went about fixing all these things as invisably as they ever could just to make this holiday so magical. Today when I have kids of my own I just feel it's all a big load of shit, that I have to get through, and I am afraid that I'm not as good as my parents were when it comes to the hiding part. But then again, my parents didn't both work. My mom was a stay-at-home-mum and naturally that gave her a lot of extra time compared to what we have every year. If I was to stay at home I would also manage to keep the house clean, have time to do all the shopping, decorate the house and what not. But times are changing. Or they have been for the last 10-15 years.

Today I would say it was a luxury to have all that time on your hands. It's a luxury very few of us can afford. I read on the last Swenews a story about people claiming time to be the ultimate luxury. Time to do what they want and what they need, without having to stress.

I so wish I win a million bucks some day so I wouldn't have to work this much. I'd still want to work I think, but not as much. I would love to devote my time to podcasting though. That would be cool. But the thing is that I never gamble or even buy a lottery ticket so the chances of me winning a million bucks is slim to none!

But the way I see it, going back to the topic at hand, Christmas is just another holiday today, fueled by the memories from your childhood when your parents had the time and effort to make it a magical one! I know it sounds very cynical, but the magic is just all gone. Because when you stare into the red glass ball in the christmas tree on the 24th of december, you just might see a piece of reality instead! And it's not always as magical as the memories...

Merry Christmas everyone!
Talk to you soon again.

/ Andy

Back again!

2006-12-18T18:29:00.000+01:00

Sorry for being the worst blogger ever, not updating since the 8th of december! A lot of things have happened since then, and all this has forced me to prioritize and focus on the tasks at hand.

One of these 'tasks' has been the administration surrounding Swecasters. We have now officially been declared an association and recieved - what we in sweden reffer to as - our organisation number, which is an identitycode that makes it possible to get a bankaccount, start making deals and so on. Every company/corporation and private person in sweden has this kind of number. As a private person your number is called "personal number" (Personal Identity Number (british) or Social security number (USA)), but it's basically the same thing. It's for identifying YOU.

The personal number in Sweden is built up of 10 digits, where the first six represent your date of birth, in my case 72 (1972) 05 (may) 31 (day 31). The following two digits represent the region in which you where born. The 9th digit represent if you are male (odd) or female (even) and the last digit is a control number.
The control number is calculated throught the MOD-10 algorythm. You can read more about that on the Wiki.

As opposed to the SSN used in the US, our peronal numbers are issued at birth and stick with us throughout life. Even if they are printed somewhere... :-) I read somewhere that in the US, Social security numbers are not valid if they have been printed somewhere, and you then have to change.

The good thing about the swedish system is that since the number is built up from our date of birth it's (1) very easy to memorize and (2) very informational. We use this number everywhere. At a hospital when registring, when applying for a bank account, when renting a car, when borrowing books at the library. Basically our entire society is based on the use of our Personal Number. It tells all the computer systems who I am, in more or less detail depending on the place of use.

Do you have it the same way in other countries? It would be interesting to know.

Have a great week guys, and don't forget to check out the latest episode of the Polarbear Podcast »

/ Andy

Better luck next time!

2006-12-08T08:14:00.000+01:00

I was hardly the only swede who sat up late last night and waited for the space shuttle launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in vain I must add! Well sometimes things don't go the way they plan and when it comes to the weather, what can they do?!

I first thought they where concerned about the clouds and winds due to trajectory reasons, afraid that the shuttle would end up 50 miles or so off target once in space, but I learnt tonight that they have to be able to visably follow the shuttle the first minute or so before the radar locks on it, and that is very hard to do at night, if there are a lot of clouds around. (Never thought I'd learn anything at 03.30 am...!)

So they will be at it again on sunday evening as it seems right now. Better weather from what they know, and hopefully we will have a lift-off.

First swede in space...hmm. COOL!

/ Andy

Let's dance!

2006-12-07T06:57:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago we were informed by the company's entertainment committee that our annual christmas party will be held on the 13th of december and the theme (!) for this year will be the 70's and 80's...

For this reason we are expected to wear at least one item, that can clearly be connected to this period, and also hand in a photo of ourselves from way back then.

As you might have guessed, this idea didn't exactly thrill me, even if I feel like a bore for getting so irritated about it, but I just think they are overstepping their mission this time. Why can't we just have a regular christmas party with a nice dinner, some entertainment, perhaps some dancing and off work topic mingel? Why do they need to take it this far and make it a theme-party?!

And for once I got the signals from others who also felt the same. And mind you, it's not a question of being ungrateful, it's a question of being sour about them spoiling what could have become a nice evening!

So why am I now opposed to these ideas?

I don't like costume parties, however little costume it means. I don't like not being able to wear something than I feel comfortable in. I am a bit conscious about that and that probably has something to do with the fact that I weigh 20 kg more today than I did back in the 80's (which was my childhood era in this case). So even if I had something saved from that time, which I don't, it wouldn't fit me! So that becomes an issue.
I don't like giving away pictures of myself from back then either. I don't like the way I looked and I didn't back then either. I had a tough teenage-period, spending many sleepless nights trying to find my identity and so on, and this of course had it's toll on the way I looked. One strange style after another. Nothing I want to share with my co-workers. "Oh, but everyone is doing it" they say. Well, maybe so, but it's not because of the picture itself, but the relationship I have with the person in the picture. To me it's more than just a picture
There is an excessive amount of cheerfulness in the air! Why do some people have to be so cheerful all the time? Yeah, I know, it's for a party, but sometimes I just wish they would lower the level of cheerfulness and just try a bit harder to make it a night to remember as positive instead. Not everyone feels this f**king enthusiasm towrds their party ideas.

We are somewhere around 40 people at the place I work down here in Helsingborg. And the extertainment committee consists of a bunch of people, all from the same suburb for some reason, who think they are the most fun people on the planet. They have masterplans to cheer everyone up, and make everyone participate, and see that everyone takes time off to be there etc.
At our headquarters, in Stokcholm, they also have one of these committees and from what I have heard they succeed much better every year in giving the staff a nice, memorable evening, instead of making it a night at the kindergarten, with games and ridiculous themes.

Once, when they inaugurated the new office up there, they had a great feast that went to the history books, and it was awesome. Everyone from Helsingborg was invited up there for this evening and they had set up a bar, great food, magicians walking around all evening doing tricks, and a lot of stage entertainment. Wonderful!
Now, THAT's how a party should be held!

But this time I guess I have to say to myself as I always say to others...

Suck it up and move on!

/ Andy

And away he goes...or not!

2006-12-06T22:28:00.000+01:00

So it's time - at last - for the swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang to get his ass kicked into space. With a speed of 40.000 km/h he will be propelled 400 km out into space, all the way to the space station ISS, where he will attach "p5" to the structure.

Chister has been at it for some time now. He started training for Nasa back in 1995. Before that he trained with the russian kosmonauts on their system.

Now my big question in all this is why? Why do you spend all this money on sending a bunch of people out into space. I heard somewhere that just this single trip has cost american taxpayers and investors about 10 billion dollars to pull off.
Just think what this amount of money could have been used for instead. Like building schools, getting prostitutes off the street, helping homeless, stopping polution, curing AIDS...

But it's great that they send people to build a spacestation!

I realize that this station is an fantastic platform for scientists to explore new stuff and what not, but the question is: Is it worth it?! In what global sense will ISS safen the existence of mankind? How will our lives be more valuable once this spcaestation is ready? Wouldn't it be better to spend the money on making THIS world a better place to live, than finding ways to get the hell out of here?

Well, I wish Christer good luck tonight, if they ever get to take off (there has been some issues with the weather lately), and hope he has a nice flight. For him personally this has to be huge.

But for society and mankind I have a hard time seeing what point there is to all this.

/ Andy

Picture: www.NASA.gov

And the looser is...

2006-12-02T19:44:00.000+01:00

So the winner of the 2006 year's Swedish Idol has finally been declared.

But who cares?

I just don't understand the hysteria surrounding this contest. Maybe it's because I am no bigger fan of mainstream music, or the fact that I have a hard time understanding the concept of reality tv.

The winner this year, in the swedish version of Idol, is a guy called Markus Fagervall. I don't know that much about him, but a few weeks back I read a story on the web edition of Aftonbladet where he was complaining about not getting paid by tv4 (who is in charge of the competition here in Sweden) during the contest. How was he supposed to pay his rent, and so on, if they didn't give him (and the rest of course) some kind of sallery?!

After having read this story I got the impression this dude was a moron. When you try out for a show like Idol, aren't you willing to sacrifice a thing or two? Aren't you prepared to play the game just like the rest of the contenders? Isn't that a cheap price to pay for immediate stardome, should you win??? Ah, but that's just it... IF you win.

Markus made his comments to aftonbladet based on if he wouldn't win. Why he should go through with all this, not getting paid, and then loose the competition. Well, from where I am standing that's just a part of the game. Only one person wins! It could be him, but it could also be one of the remaining 10 or however many they are from the start. No-one knows from the start who'll win, so it's a bit of gambling. Right?

And I also suspect that you sign some kind of contract upon becoming a contestant, and in there somewhere ought to be a paragraph stating that tv4 will NOT pay out anything until you win. So this prooves one of two things.

He can't read or has chosen not to read the contract before signing it.
He knew the rules, but regret signing the contract when reality finally hit him in the face.

Either way I think it proves him to be a pretty daft person. You don't get involved with a thing like Idol on tv without knowing what the heck you're doing. Either you are passionate about performing and/or you are a real business person. There are no in betweens...

Anyway, Markus ended up winning the final, so I guess his financial problems have been erased for the time being. But it irritates me that a guy with such a little brain gets to win, even if I understand that the contest is built on performance, not IQ. It just feels as if he doesn't deserve it after a statement like that.

And the irony in all this is that, looking back on previous years, it has always been the runner up who has recieved most fame and fortune in the long run. Not the winner.
Going back the number twos have been Darin and Sebastian who both have experinced far greater success than the winners Daniel and Agnes. So maybe this year the runner up, Erik Segerstedt, will be the winner after all! I personally hope so anyway. Cause I donät find Markus to be a very humble person.

But as I was saying; in the end...who cares? :-)

/ Andy

When hell freezes over...

2006-11-30T09:48:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to share this joyfull moment with you all!

My wonderful X-wife decided today, on my name day (do you have that in other countries?) to return the money that she's been borrowing from me during the last 3 years. And it's a significant amount of spending cash too, so I'm pretty thrilled about this.

Normally we don't celebrate name days more than by saying "congrats" or something, but today I have the feeling that Marie and I will be going out and having ourselves a nice dinner or something, if nothing else just to celebrate the fact that the money has finally returned home.

Now I can go out and get some new gear to my studio... he he! :-)

And speaking about money, I just found this great site where they present all swedish bills/notes, currently available. Check it out at http://www.illustrata.com/pages/lanksidasedlar.html

/ Andy

Not on the Wiki

2006-11-27T21:03:00.000+01:00

What would you say you'd expect to find if you do a random search on Wikipedia? Does the word "everything" pop into your mind? Well, that was what I thought too, but as it turns out very few things actually have the rights to have a page on the Wiki.

It all started a few weeks back when I was trying to update the section on Podcasting in the Swedish segment of the Wiki. I tried to add everything I thought might be interesting for someone who did a search for podcasting (or podradio as it's called here in sweden). I hate it myself when you do a search and just a few words in the text are linked. In that way you can't DIG and that is what I find so appealing with Wiki.

Anyway, I sat there editing the text and adding a few facts and also adding a textlink (internal) for Swecasters to a new page. I thought this would be interesting since we are Swedens first and only podcasting association, and we are sort of the most natural forum for anyone interested in podcasting in Sweden.

It just took a few minutes before I received an email from one of the moderators of the Wiki, telling me "not to add stuff about my personal hobbies".

WHAT?!

He told me to check the guidelines for editing on the wiki and among the things he pointed to was a paragraph stating that...

...an association with less than 2000 members isn't interesting to have on the Wiki.
Why isn't this interesting?! Up until now podcasting isn't huge in Sweden but it will be I hope and that might be partially thanks to people finding out about it (and Swecasters) on the Wiki... huh?! I think it's great when you find a nish subject AND also sublevel things about it. And I know that you are not allowed to do marketing on the wiki, but I don't. I'm just informing people that we exist and what we do. I'm not telling them to join...!
...the wikipedia isn't a dictionary, so therefor one shouldn't make links to words that need explaining.
OK, so why is the word "podcasting" in the Wiki then for instance? Why are many other words in the Wiki for that matter? Of course it's not a source for explaining regular words like car, stand, jump etc, but as far as I see it you should be able to do a search for basically anything on there. Am I wrong?!

Well, I let time go by and after a few weeks (being yesterday) I did a new post with Swecasters on the Wikipedia. This time I haven't recieved an e-mail yet, but I am waiting for it.

I just thinks it's ridiculous that someone has the power to decide what should go in the wiki and not - the way this guy does it anyway. From what I read on this and one more moderators discussion page a LOT of people are getting annoyed over these guys removing things. They also have a tendancy to delete facts and other stuff that they see fit.

Maybe I'm too old for the wiki, or maybe I think it's more anarchy than it really is.
Or maybe I'm dead on right about this!

Let me know.

/ Andy

No point with podcasting!

2006-11-24T10:50:00.000+01:00

That is the subtle headline of a chronicle that I read on tuesday and that angered me somewhat and I'll try to explain why and also why not. If you want to, and know how to, you can read the entire chronicle by clicking the link below. It's in swedish, that's why I say so.

http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/
kultur/did_14115543.asp

Ok, so there is this guy at Svenska Dagbladet who writes chronicles in the culture section of the paper, or if it's just on the web, I don't know. This one was filed under "Radio chronicles".
He starts of by comparing podcasters with radio amateurs and claims that we're just a bunch of tech geeks with a lack of social competens, who are eager to make ourselves heard in any way possible. To all of our neighbours who care to listen...

He goes on by badgering podcasting as a media and makes a number of claims that I personally find very incorrect. Among these we find the following (freely translated, and with my remarks):

There are many problems surrounding podcasting! (???)
- As opposed to blogging, you can't skim the content finding the good parts. (nor can you on the radio or on TV, but THAT isn't a problem)
- It's expensive. (It's free!)
- The podcast community has invented pod safe music to circumvent the licencing regulations of STIMM (Swedish eq to ASCAP/BMI). (Why is this a problem?)
Podcasting is still just an option for large media companies who can have people employed on a full time basis. (Yeah, right! That's why over 90% of the podcasters are independant)

Ok...This is of course his own opinion, and in a democracy like Sweden he has not only the rights to have them but also the rights to express them in any way he sees fit, as long as no-one comes to harm.

And we are not harmed. Not the slightest. Just amazed over the ignorance of a swedish journalist, writing for the largest paper in the country, evidently not enough researched or perhaps not exposed to all the amazing shows within the podisphere. Maybe he just listened to some bad ones...

He mentions Swecasters in his chronicle, you know the podcasting organization that I founded and am now the chairman of. Only a brief mention of us, and that we call ourselves "podders". Not "tech geeks". I guess he was disappointed about that. I think he was hoping for more fuel to his fury about podcasters. I am a bit surprised that his editor in chief gave the green light on a story that seems to be so badly researched.

Anyway, I think podcasting is going to be big. Really big! And of course things will level out in a couple of years, and the anarchy will fade a bit, and large companies will once again make filthy amounts of money on this new phenomena that we today call podcasting and consider ourselves to be pioneers within.

We'll see who wins the race in a few years. I just think it's sad that he is so narrow minded as a journalist. Normally they like grass root level things, but apparantly this journalist wasn't to fond of the concept of User Generated Content (UGC), or he just didn't understand it...

And then he claimed we didn't have any listeners anyway. Well we do. And they love our shows. And they wait eagerly every week for the next one. It's a sound and working ont-to-a-few relationship. Media doesn't have to be MASSmedia to be good. I know of many really good podcasts that only reach a few hundred people. That's the beauty with it. It can start off small and then grow - or not grow. And I also know many podcasts that are better even on a technical level than many shows I hear on the radio.

But I think this chronicle is really good in one aspect!
Thanks to this cronicle a few more people have opened their eyes to podcasting. Some of them will hopefully visit our site and a few of them will learn more and start exploring the world of podcasting by themselves, before they decide to believe this guy. By writing this article he has also made the term "podcasting" searchable on the newspapers website, which is wasn't before. And as some smart ass said way way back:

There is no such thing as bad publicity!

Have a great weekend my friends.

/ Andy

Blasphemous Rumours

2006-11-21T09:33:00.000+01:00

I just interviewed a Swecaster colleague of mine the other day, who is a theology student here in sweden, striving to become a priest in the Swedish Church. He's a very nice chap and we had a great time doing the interview. We addressed both religious and nonreligious issues.

After the interview I started thinking about all these questions, regarding religion, and with risk of alienating half of my podcast audience I have to say: I don't get it.

Religion I mean.

How can people - grown up people - seriously say that there is a god? How can a grown up man or woman claim that they believe in god and still be able to get a job? If I told an interviewer that i TRULY believed in Santa Claus I doubt I would get that job, or any job else for that matter.

Without being an expert in religion or so, I thought I'd just try to point out a few things that to me 'proves' god's non-existance. And please feel free to respond to these doubts.

One of the big things in christian religion is the belief itself. One has to belive in God to be able to find him and so on. Now, to me this sounds like "The emperors new clothes". If you believe you have clothes on you, you have... And by doing this you can imagine yourself having the most beautiful garmet whilst infact you're still butt naked! Same thing with god. You can believe all you want, but you're still alone. Cause he won't show himself for you. No, you have to believe in order to experience him... Also a little bit like Santa Claus... And if we're sticking to the allegory of "The emperors new clothes" one could claim that the tailors in the story are in fact the church in real life!
According to the bible humans are created as a replica of god. And by saying that it is also stated that humans stand above all other living things, as far as equality goes. Now how do believers explain that animals for instance have been around so much longer than human beings? And please don't give me your anti-science crap! Denying science only prooves you live in a dream world! (Bang, there I just lost half my listeners...)
How does Christianty (in this case) explain that there are somewhere in the vicinity of 200 other religions worldwide who do not believe in the same god as we do, or even in one single god for that matter. Has God had a hard time convincing these guys what is right and wrong or is there in fact many gods, all competing for the same crowd, and trying very hard to convince us that their religion is the best? A little bit like cable tv channels, fighting for your time in front of the tube.
Now, if god is 'all mighty', then why doesn't he end all misery in the world?
What is the purpose with god's mission here on earth? Why is he still here with us, when all we do is screw up all the time? Why hasn't he moved on to a new planet somewhere and started a new civilization, or...is this in fact what he has done, and if so, what's the point in praying any more?
If god is 'all mighty' he probably knows everything, right? Now, if he knows everyhting, then he also knows what lies ahead!? And if he already knows what is coming, then what kind of meaning does it all have - for him?! For god it would be like watching a never ending film that he already knows the ending to. I just read a book a few month's back called 'God's Debris' where this exact question is being asked. If you haven't read it, please do, cause it really gets you thinking, and you can download it for free!
How can religious people live "by the bible" when the book is so out of date that it's frightening! Or is it god's will that we stone our neighbour to death for working on a sunday? Or that we should give a travelling through stranger not only a bed to sleep in, but also my daughter for the night...! Not the kind of god I want to look up to.

Now, for all you believers out there, please pepper me with "proof" of why I am wrong in the statements above, cause I really want to understand this and perhaps even believe one day myself.

And for the record...
I do belive that there is something "out there" affecting us. Something we can't see.
And I do believe there is a dimension, that we do not understand when alive on this earth.
And I do believe there is some kind of existance after death.
And I do believe that Jesus might have lived as an historical person
And I... Well you get the picture!

I just don't believe there is a God!

Now, I rest my case...

/ Andy

It's all f**ked up!

2006-11-20T10:57:00.000+01:00

I read the tabloids today and they had an article about a 15 year old girl from the little town of Funäsdalen (mostly know by me as a skiing place) who spends her every day in a living hell called school!

I was very moved by the article which was a mix between Emmas diary posts and the words of the reporter. I just can't believe that people go through life this way. On an everyday basis too... The worst part of it is that the school board apparently denies any kind of bullying at school. It just doesn't exist according to them!

Today it happened again!
My english teacher pointed to a table and asked me to sit there.
At the table there were already 6 others. When I sat down, the girl nearest to me moved her chair away. And a boy moved to the other side of the table. I shut my eyes not to start crying. If they see that it just gets worse.
I didn't cry until I got out into the corridor. I thought no-one saw me, but then the headmaster walked by and asked why I was crying. I told her.
She checked with the teacher. Then she came back and told me that the boy had moved only to see the black board better, not to get away from me...

This is the story of 15 year old Emma, and the way she sees life. Everywhere in working life studies are made to ensure a sound psychosocial environment, so that people have a safe and pleasant place to go to every day at work. But at school this doesn't apply...for some reason! Apparently it's not as important that our young ones have a safe environment, as it is that we grown-ups do. Kids spend just as much time away from home every day as we do, so why is it OK for bullies to roam the schools when it's not ok when we're adults.

Emma hasn't been to school since mid september. She can't stand the eyeballing, the threats, the notes stuck into her locker telling her that she's a retard! She has a medical certificate saying that her condition (strange coughing, panic attacks etc) are most likely caused by bullying. But the school board - led by the headmaster - says that there is no bullying at school. She has several times considered taking her own life. She has written at least two fare well notes to her mother, but never got around to going through with it, thank god.

Emma is a normal looking 15 year old girl. Nothing with her strikes me as especially odd, but her "friends" at school have chosen her to be the victim of their bullying, and there for she has to go through living hell every day. The kids at school are not going to stop until the day she dies, and then everyone will ask, what happened. The school board will stand astonished, wondering what went wrong cause they don't have bullying at this school.

Please - don't let young people have to go thorugh this. If you know anyone who is exposed to bullying, tell them off, or tell someone else, who is in charge. This applies to both working place and school. No-one has the obligation to put up with bullying. NO-ONE!

No-one!!!

/ Andy

Mission acomplished

2006-11-14T20:01:00.000+01:00

It really has nothing much to do with the format of this blog, but I just wanted to tell you all that we yesterday evening held a constitutional meeting and formally founded Swecasters.

In doing this, Swedens first and only podcasting group has now been founded.

I was elected chairman of the board (thank you), and Christan D and Johan N were elected members of the board. We are going to hold our very first board meeting tomorrow where a lot of administrative stuff will be decided and this is very important since minutes of this meeting plus minutes of the annual general meeting have to be attached when applying for becoming an official organization with the IRS.

And we have lots of ideas right now how to make podcasting better and more appreciated here in Sweden. But first off is trying to get at least a few sponsors so we actually have some financial backup to work with.

If you by any chance feel that you want to support this non-profit organization, please send me an email and we'll work out the details.

If you want to read more about Swecasters, you can visit the official site at www.swecasters.com, where there is a little information in english.

/ Andy

She's taking the kids - part II

2006-11-13T14:24:00.000+01:00

First of all I need to thank all of you kind people who have been emailing me and leaving comments in the post regarding this topic. And secondly, just to keep you guys up to date, I thought I'd let you know about this latest news I got from my lawyer.

Since making the last post I have been kind of depressed about the whole situation and I haven't known what to do. As a last resort (since it's so f**king expensive) I've now been in contact with my lawyer who has been very helpful in guiding me in the right direction and explaining to me what is actually right and wrong in this situation.

Based on his explanation a couple of things became clear to me:

She is not allowed to take the kids with her without my approval according to swedish law, since we share custody. If she does anyway, it is considered kidnapping and she could be facing time in jail.
If we cannot decide on a solution that is best for the kids, there will be no other option but taking this case to court (which I for one, am not looking forward to)
When courts decide on things like this in sweden they ONLY take into consideration what is best for the kids. They don't care about me or my ex. It's all about the kids.

So the next step for me is to tell her that I am NOT accepting the fact that she is planning on taking the kids. And also telling her what rules apply should she not be aware of these. And by doing this I am also telling her that I am prepared for battle should it come to that!

I have about 15 arguments why she shouldn't take the kids, but if this doesn't help, the next step is to have my lawyer write her a letter, strongly suggesting that she leave the kids at home, since they are better off here (based on my arguments).

If this still doesn't help I will file for sole custody, but this is something I am hoping on not having to do. Because no one wins that war!

But for me it feels a teeny weeny bit better today after having had that chat with my lawyer since I now know more about what rights I have and what happens should it all blow up in my face. And now you know too...

Once again - thanks for all the support!!!

/ Andy

How disgusting are we???

2006-11-13T12:47:00.000+01:00

Aftonbladet.se recently did a poll regarding filthy habits within relationship and after 4390 people had answered a selection of the answers looked like this, and they are pretty scary...

The question is, wether it's ok to....

...use the toilet and leave the door open?
Yes (55.8 %) No (44.2 %)

...not wash hands after having been to the toilet?
Yes (13.2 %) No (86.8 %)

...cut off toe nails and leave them on the table?
Yes (7.0 %) No (93.0 %)

...have unshaved arm pits?
Yes (57.5 %) No (42.5 %)

...leave skidmarks in the toilet?
Yes (14.4 %) No (85.6 %)

...spit outdoors?
Yes (77.0 %) No (23.0 %)

...poke oneself in "places you shouldn't"?
Yes (46.8 %) No (53.2 %)

...not change underwear every day?
Yes (28.3 %) No (71.7 %)

Considering we look upon ourselves as one of the most hygenic societies in the world I am very surprised over the results in many of the questions. The ones I react upon the most are for instance that 14% think it's ok to leave skidmarks in the toilet, and that 28% think it's ok to not change underwear every day. That's aweful!!! But if almost 50% thinks it's ok to poke their noses so be it, but I don't think we can call ourselves that very hygenic any more.

Personally I live by the swedish motto: "a little dirt cleans out the stomach" (Lite skit rensar magen), but there is a long way from that to some of the opinions above!!!

/ Andy

____________________
Illustration: Mats Forsmark

Punishments for inactive unemployed

2006-11-13T11:46:00.000+01:00

Finance minister Anders Borg (picture) wants unemployed people not actively seeking work to be docked a day's benefits. He intends to introduce the change "as soon as possible". All this according to thelocal.se

Now, first of all I have to say that I reacted very heavily on the idea of punishing unemployed people. But then again there are a few facts that you have to take into consideration.

1) The suggestion is to punsih unemployed people who are NOT looking for work, i.e. people who just sit at home and do nothing or at least too little to try and find a new job. These are people just living off benifits and in some cases (and I say SOME cases) not even wanting a jobb. (And why should they, since they make just as much money being unemployed...?)

2) The suggested punishments are actually a milder form of the rules that already exist today where you get taken off benifits all together if you're not active enough. So in this way the government is hoping that smaller but more frequent punishments will make people look for work more efficiently.

In swedish media - and isn't it fun how media always becomes a form of oposition - the suggestion has been painted out to be yet another cruel attack against the unemployed, weak and poor. Infact, looking at the facts, the suggestion is a milder form of the current rules and could actually scare some of the worst lazy goons out of their couches and on to the streets looking for a job. And the benifits of a lower unemployment are not even worth mentioning.

I think it's very tough being unemployed, but I also think that after a while one has a tendancy to fall into sort of a coma where you have no contact with the outside world since you "know" there aren't any jobs out there anyway. For those people who are affected by that, I think this suggestion will come in handy.

And please, all you reporters out there, tell the whole story, just for once!

/ Andy

______________
Photo: Carl Lilius

Time to go pal!

2006-11-11T23:21:00.002+01:00

I don't know if you've heard the latest news about our former state secratary Lars Danielsson, who was Göran Perssons right hand in the late social democratic government?

Our current foreign minister Carl Bildt told the press today that "Danielsson lied over his role in the government's handling of the December 2004 tsunami catastrophe, in which over 500 Swedes died."

Since Danielsson has this blunder on his CV he is not in any way fit to take a job as an ambassador in a foreign country, according to Bildt, who goes on by saying that he isn't sure if Danielsson is suitable for any job at the foreign ministry - at all.

So here we have a former state secretary, with a history of lying to the swedish people and now desperately looking for a job as an ambassador in a foreign country. I have nothing against former political high rollers getting jobs like that abroad and ending their careers working with promotion of sweden abroad, but I have to concur with Bildt in this matter. We can't even trust this guy on telling the truth about the tsunami disaster - a sad event in swedish history where almost every swede was affected in some way.

"I think that to be branded by the Riksdag's Justice Ombudsman as having lied to the Riksdag is not on the qualification list for ambassadorial appointments," Bildt told Swedish Radio.

My personal opinion - based on what the media has told us about this chap over the last couple of months - is that he should be irreversably relieved of his duties at the foreign ministry, never to come back into politics again. I thinks it's just embarassing that he's even applied for these different foreign top shot jobs.

I'll keep you posted on the development of this story, as new things pop up.

/ Andy

She's taking the kids!

2006-11-09T11:41:00.000+01:00

I know it sounds very dramatic, but that is the result of my latest encounter with my ex wife. She is, possibly, moving to some other town to attend a school for two years, and on doing so, she plans on taking the kids with her. i.e. moving them to a new school with new friends and new environments,

Is this a good thing?
I don't know! It doesn't feel that way, but I haven't weighed all the pros and cons yet.

Can she do this?
Well the children are legally living with her and only visiting me 49,9% of the time, so yes, she could with support of the law.

Is it the right thing to do?
I doubt it! Now anyway. I think it would be very exciting for the children to get some new experiences, but isn't it more stable for them to stay in a well known surrounding, even if things aren't all dandy here? Theyäve just recovered from a divorce situation, so I think it's stupid putting them through this as well.

Can I stop it?
I could take it to court and claim that she's out of her mind, dead broke or not fit to be a mother or something. And even if two out of three are true, she would still have a very strong case since she is the MOTHER of the children and that gives her enormous power over their upbringing.

The thing is that I am not too worried after all, because the chances of her getting enroled in this education are slim to none. She doesn't have what it takes according to me, and she's already flunked the entrance exam 2 times so... But there is of course a risk (and I see it as such) and I have to be prepared to fight with all the power I can to keep the children here in Helsingborg. I strongly belive this is the right thing to do FOR THE KIDS and I am prepared to make all necessary sacrifices to make it work.

What do you think??!

/ Andy

Age and education = more money!

2006-11-08T16:16:00.000+01:00

We've just been discussing at work, the everelasting topic of wether people with education and experience (=age) should have higher income than people without.

Let's start with the question of age...
In sweden it is very common that people who have worked a long time in the same trade have an higher income than those who haven't. This is something that is deeply rooted in our way of life and our society. The question now is wether this is right or not?!
According to me it's bullshit, because I belive that you get paid to do a job. I'm not getting paid for who I am or how much experince I have - not directly anyway.
But doesn't experience and personality count at all? Well, from where I'm standing these assets are nothing more than pitchers to get the job you want. As soon as you get it, they're not worth a thing. I don't see why two people doing the same tasks in a company should have different income just because one of them is older.
And all this talk about "as you get old your life becomes more expensive" is nothing more than bullshit! First of all it's not true. The most expensive part of your life is between 30-40 when you start raising a family etc. Secondly you often climb the career ladder during your life which automatically results in a higher income. If you choose not to do that - for any reason - why should your company have to pay for you getting old.
I just don't see the logics!

Now, when it comes to education it's a bit trickier.
But as you might suspect, even here I am in fovour of not letting that affect the income. Why do people educate themselves then?
Well, to get the job they dream of and be more attractive on the market, I would guess. Just the same way as a woman for instance puts on make up to be more attractive to men (or women if she happens to be a lesbian, but that's beside the point!) .
That doesn't mean they should be entitled to a higher income than someone without an education, as long as they perform the same tasks and are equally qualified for it. If they hadn't invested in the education they might not even have gotten the job in the first place. Are you catching my drift?
I can fully respect people who have a good education and in some fields it's absolutely required, like in medicine for instance. But in my line of work - graphic design - there are self educated people who are just as good at the craft, if not even better, than people with a fancy degree. But then again, this is a creative line of work. Maybe that's the difference.
But the way I see it, education is above all a mean to AQUIRE a job, not a leverage to get a certain income when you already have one. That doesn't work in my book!

When I've been in a position to hire people, I haven't look that much to education and age, but more to EQ and how good team players they've been. And of course that they have met the basic requirements for the job, but that goes without saying.
I would pay - two differently educated peope in different ages - the same amount of money to perform the same job. If it is exactly the SAME job of course.

I would love to hear your take on the issue. maybe situations are different in different parts of the world?!

/ Andy

Back on the tube!

2006-11-07T21:38:00.000+01:00

So, it's time once again to get the popcorn ready, sit down in the couch, pour up a glass of coke and turn off the telephone...

A new season of Grey's Anatomy is starting tonight on Kanal 5.

I may not be the average Greys Anatomy viewer, but I find this show very appealing due to 3 things.

1) I think Katherine Heigl is one of the most beutiful women alive! That alone would make me do all of the above every week.

2) T.R. Knight (who plays George) is very much like me, or at least the kind of person I think of myself as. Just as clumpsy and just as shy.

3) Patick Dempsey (who plays Dr Shepard) was for a long time one of my most despised actors, but since I saw him on Grey's Anatomy I just love the guy - in a very non gay sort of way. I just think he's cool, and unlike George the kind of character I'd WANT to be.

So right now I'm going to get back in the couch and watch the first two episodes of the 3rd season of Grey's Anatomy, so I won't miss a single frame of either reason 1, 2 or 3!

Checking back soon.

/Andy

No smoking - No penalty!

2006-11-07T12:35:00.000+01:00

In the papers yesterday and today we read about how people who take smoking breaks during office hours will have the equal amount of time deducted from their paycheck.

This is what thelocal.se wrote about it:

"Employees in Uddevalla are best advised to kick the habit fast. Otherwise the time they spend puffing will be deducted from their wages. The municipality, which employs between 500 and 600 office workers at its local government offices, only permits smoking at lunch time and during the two daily coffee breaks."

As you may understand this has cause somewhat of a commotion here in Sweden, since smokers are once again targeted in a campain to make people stop smoking. First smoking in public places like libraries, court houses, railway stations etc was forbidden a few years ago. Then at new year a law was passed that forbid smoking at restaurants, cafés bars etc and now the county of Uddevalla wants to take this one step further and punish smokers who spend time on smoke breaks, by not paying them during their puffing.

Personally I think it's GREAT! I have often wondered why my smoking co-workers are allowed to have 15 minute breaks every hour to pop outside to smoke, when I only get 5 minutes per hour (which are added up into two 20 minute breaks, one before and one after lunch.)

So I say - Way to go Uddevalla County! Finally someone who dares stand up to these suicidal people who not only affect their own lives with their smoking but also everyone around them.

I am very much against smoking, and this might have something to do with that my mum smoked until she turned 50, when she got a stroke and was forced by the doctors to choose between life and the cigarettes. She chose wisely, and has today been smoke free for almost 20 years! But it still makes me hate cigarettes.

And also it smells like shit! I hate people coming in from their smoke breaks to the coffe tables and stinking smoke. It's a real turn off! And don't even mention their breath...

But what all this boils down to is that - in the true spirit of equality - smokers should get just as much break as the rest of us. If they canät handle that, and if their addiction is too strong, then they'll have to face a cut in sallery. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing strange with it! Just true equality...

/ Andy

Congratulations Lasse!

2006-11-06T19:48:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to say a big congrats to my old highschool friend Lasse, who turns 34 today!

I've been the worst friend not calling him, so I thought I'd do like this instead so it will be carved in stone for him to see that I actually remembered him on his day - even if I didn't call!

I hope you had a great day and I look forward to meeting you soon again and hopefully also the rest of your family! I also hope on having you on the show in the future, if you feel like it.

Anyway...keep it real!

/Andy

Ahmed? No thank you!

2006-11-06T09:21:00.000+01:00

I don't know if you've read the latest news from Sweden (probably not), but this whole racist thing is starting to get out of hand now. For instance, more and more swedish employers refuse to even interview people looking for a job if they have a name like Ahmed, Muhammed, Saman or Karzan.

This is stupid!

At the same time the swedish (old) government thought it was so important to teach foreign children their home language (so they could return home one day) that they were offered that in school - for free! So not only did they speak for instance arabic at home, they also had classes on it in school. This of course means that it's very hard for these kids to properly learn a new - for them - foreign language, like swedish. And this in turn leads to a case where they can't talk fluent swedish, when they for instance apply for a job, or try to get a place to live.

Swedish people (not all, but many) are scared to death of foreigners, and just the thought of a foreign family moving into the same apartment buidling as ourselves is frightening. Let only getting a new co-worker who speaks arabic at home instead of swedish. And it's most of all the arabs that are subjected to this new ultraracist treatment, and I guess they have Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair to thank for that!

I think the big bad guy in all this is our former government and I will explain why:

They let in everyone who knocked on the doors of our border
They let them live here for many years before deciding on if they should stay permanently at all (not very humane)
They gave them home language tutoring at school
They didn't demand that they all learnt swedish to be considered citizens

If you live in a foreign country, it can many times be hard to get by, especially when it's a completely different culture, so why not try to make it easier for those people who come to this country. Let them learn swedish so they can adapt to swedish society much faster. Let them learn about Swedish history and culture, for the same reason. Try and make these people as swedish as possible. Because even if their name IS Ahmed, I think it's OK if they can say that in a perfect swedish accent.

This way, they will no longer be regarded as outsiders in the same way, since they know the language and can fully communicate!

/ Andy

We're on a road to nowhere...

2006-11-05T18:24:00.000+01:00

So, we where in Gothenburg this weekend!

Phew....!

What a trip! We left home at around 8 on saturday morning, drove past our favorite bakery where we picked up some breakfast take away, and then headed up on the E20 freeway towards Gotheburg.

The purpose of the trip was to help out my parents, who needed to pack and throw away stuff since they are moving from there current flat to a new one in a town a bit more south.

As it turned out there wasn't much to help with, cause they have decided to let a moving company take care of the entire physical packing and moving, which might be a good idea, since they are getting a bit old...!
So us coming up to help them pack was pretty meaningless, but it was nice being there and meeting them...AND my brother and sister who had also been lured down to Gothenburg from Stockholm under the same pretence that they needed help. So looking in the rear view mirror, I guess it was just a way for my parents to get us all together, and that was fun!

And we spent the night at Gothia Towers which I guess is one of the most luxurious hotells in Gothenburg. We were set up by my parents since they wanted us nearby, but couldn't make room for us at their place. While checking in we manged to get an upgrade to an excecutive suite (I can be very pursuasive...) which gave us free minibar (yummy!), a nice robe, free roomservice and breakfast on the 23rd floor, overlooking Gotheburg! What a view that was.

But it was only for a night and I felt like staying there a week or so!

And then on sunday we didn't do very much at all but drove home at around 4 o'clock after having eaten a late lunch and doing a little bit of sightseeing in my old neighbourhood, showing Marie where I grew up.

Now, we're home again and it's getting late, Sunday evening and Maries mum (the dog sitter) has just come over to drop off the dog and share a bite with us. So I've gotto go and get things in order.

More info about this trip can be heard on the Polarbear Podcast next tuesday!

/ Andy

How stupid can things get?!

2006-11-03T11:07:00.000+01:00

I read in the morning papers about a thing that I believe can only happen in Sweden.

Since the last few days of sudden winter, the population in stockholm have been having troubles with communications, more precisely with travelling by car to and from work.
I had a colleague who got stuck in the evening commute for more than 6 hours (!!!) before she finally got home. (read more on http://www.thelocal.se/5380/20061102/)

All this was due to the unexpected heavy snowfall, plus the fact that some union refused to let extra people work on the snow plough machines. I think the city managed to scram some 100 or so trucks for clearing snow, but they would have needed more than twice as many. And there were machines, but no drivers...!

Anyway, the result of all this was that people got stuck in the traffic for many, many hours and some finally gave up, due to hunger, thirst, cold and whatever reason, and abandoned their cars and started walking home.

Today when these people came back to where they had left their cars they were met by parking tickets... Yes, you heard me, the traffic wardens in Stockholm had been out on the freeways during the late hours of the evening, putting parking tickets on all cars without a driver. Now, how f**ked up isn't that?!

I have for a very long time suspected that these wardens get paid per ticket they hand out, and this just has to prove it. Who in their right mind would wander off onto the freeway (because it had to be done by foot, since the roads were blocked) and start handing out parking tickets to abandonned cars if there wasn't a personal gain?!

I hope these people, who recieved a ticket, take the city of Stockholm to court over this, because this is just too much. Somewhere there has to be a sense of logics, but in this matter that doesn't seem to be the case..

It can only happen in Sweden.

I just thought I'd share this litte story with you all!

/Andy

What's wrong...

2006-11-03T07:15:00.000+01:00

...with the weather?

Everone said it would clear up before the weekend, and start getting warmer again, or at least milder, but right now, as I have just sat myself down at work, it's 4,5 degrees BELOW zero and I just froze my ass off trying to fill the car with gas before I got here.

We're supposed to be heading up north this weekend, to help my parents pack their stuff (they're moving south), and from what I see now, we'll have to shift tires tonight, and that is something I was hoping they could do at the shop next week, so I wouldn't have the hassle.

It's not really a biggy, but shifting four tires on a car in this temperature means that you are bound to get hurt in one way or the other. Suddelnly you slip, and graze a finger or something, and you feel nothing first due to the cold, and then you realize that half your finger is missing, lying on the ground next to the spare tire...

For those of you not living in the northern regions of our world; we shift tires every year during winter time and put on special winter tires that are more suitable for driving on snowy and icy roads. That's how we stay ON the roads all through winter.

Winter or not, we're going to Gothenburg, staying at a fancy hotell (sponsored by my parents for the convenience of having us almost next door), helping them with a bit of packing, and probably returning home with a car filled with things they no longer need/want. I have my eyes set on a very nice carpet in the living room... :-D

'til next time!

Writing for the new show

2006-11-02T19:53:00.000+01:00

So here I am again, sitting at the computer, writing the script for the next episode of the PBP, while Marie is playing Sims or something on the TV. What a wonderful life we have... Ha ha

It's actually very cold today. I thought it would have gotten warmer today, but my toes are somewhat stiff right now and I have to swivel on the chair, from side to side, just to keep the heat up. We got hit yesterday by winter. I hardly remember what it was like... But now I do!

Well, gotto keep writing that script!

/Andy

Welcome to the very first post!

2006-11-02T18:44:00.000+01:00

So what is all this?

Well, Andy's playground is a secluded island in cyberspace, where I will share my thoughts and ideas on a very day-to-day basis, trying to give you an idea what it's like living in Sweden and having to deal with being a citizen of this country.

As opposed to my podcast where I need to be at least somewhat politically correct, here I will allow myself to be just as direct and politically incorrect as I see fit.

If you have any thoughts and ideas that you wish to share with me, please feel free to send me emails, comment my posts and send me audio clips for the podcast!

/Andy