Life through the eyes of a lonely car mechanic

Back on track

2005-06-14T15:35:00.000+02:00

I decided to register a domain since I will be hosting at least my own and probably at least one other car project in the future. This means that my alternate blog should be back online as soon as the domain registration has gone through, so have a look at http://nms.bilgalning.se/blog.txt to find out.

Murphy's law

2005-06-13T16:23:00.000+02:00

I checked and double checked the URL before I started to write in the alternate blog, but for some odd reason the hostname nms.regerar.org was removed from DNS on thursday, five days after posting here about it. I can't seem to get in touch with the guy responsible for the domain and/or DNS in question, so I guess I'll have to register a new domain for myself. It feels a bit like a complete waste of time and money, but perhaps I can manage to arrange things so that I don't have to pay for it until after everything else has been settled.

Desperate readers will catch the blog on http://102b.skogsglantan.ac/nms/blog.txt for the time being.

Alternate blogs

2005-06-03T21:07:00.000+02:00

I have decided to let my other identity make his voice heard in a Swedish "blog". This means that I will probably not post as often here as you are all used to, which is somewhere close to bi-weekly these days.

Those of you who understand swedish may or may not wish to take a look at http://nms.regerar.org/blog.txt to get better informed about what happens in the life of a currently not very lonely car mechanic. First post will be an update about my current situation in life, so both new and returning readers will get a couple of unasked questions answered.

I might return here some day, but I don't think it will be any time soon, and it probably won't be interesting.

Ashamed?

2005-05-18T18:55:00.000+02:00

Yes, I most certainly am. I'm ashamed for all my unpaid debts, but feeling bad about owing people money does not make me any richer.

Don't worry, if I owe you money you will get it. I'm not in any way trying to run from my debts, I'm just hiding from them at the moment. When I constantly live with just enough money to pay my bills and feed me through a month I just don't give a shit about who I owe money and how much they nag about it. Last month I was forced to quit smoking - a vice I did not really want to give up - for financial reasons. This month I had to borrow my girlfriend's personal Jet gasoline billing card to get to and from work without spending all my food money on fuel.

No, I'm not the kind of guy who talks to people about postponing payments and similar. For some reason I was never raised with social skills as a goal, and some skills I would have been a lot better off if I had learned a long time ago are just now starting to develop. That's not some kind of excuse or cry for help, that's the simple fact and is not open for discussion or treatment.

I admit I'm really lousy with financial planning and I have never been really good at saving money. I can probably list about a hundred less thought trough financial decisions done by me in the last five years or so. This does not change the decisions made or the results thereof, and nothing I can do really will.

This month is my first with my new employer, and I'm having a great time compared to the place I worked before. Financially, this month is looking quite good; I might not be able to pay all my debts entirely, but I will make substantially debt reducing payments to a certain number of individuals.

Just calm down and leave me alone. Comments like "why [...]?", "when [...]?", "how [...]?" and variations of "put your money where your keyboard is" will not yield results interesting to either of us.

Evolution

2005-05-14T10:24:00.000+02:00

This morning, while still in bed letting my mind associate its way through the world I started thinking about the 19th century war between Sweden and Russia, which took a lot of soldiers' lives in battles around these parts of the country. This got me thinking about how wars are waged and fought: Often there are two or more leaders sitting at a table discussing how to draw borders on a map or share mutual resources, and when these discussions run into a dead end they give orders for their armies to attack each other.

I slept a lot in school, and hence am not too familiar with world history, but I have a general grasp of what has happened through the ages. Allow me to try to recap a little:

In pre-historic times - neanderthals, homo erectus and those guys - a handful of cavemen would toss rocks and beat wooden sticks at another handful of cavemen, probably with no better excuse than "nobody but me can piss on that tree" or similar.

In ancient times - romans and greeks conquering the world - kings and emperors talked more or less peacefully about a piece of land or (as in the case of the greeks and the spartans) some woman and when they can't agree they let their armies fight it out.

In medieval times - for some reason also known as "the dark ages" - the armies would fight blindly for years until one side got the bright idea to kill the other side's leader, and suddenly the war was over.

In modern times - democratic world leaders teaching dictators how to run their countries - the size and number of mushroom clouds decides which country has the most power, and armies are used to defeat those countries who currently does not have nukes but could potentially show a bigger and better cloud in the near future.

I live in Sweden and haven't had any first hand experience of war, so I can only relate to it through what I have seen in news, Discovery documentaries and Hollywood movies. At my last job I had a trainee from Iraq, who (naturally) had real, first hand experience of war, and when I asked him about what he felt about a friend of mine who was born in Iran he said "I don't care where he's from - we did not fight that war, our leaders did."

Today, we can see this evolution of war in the actions of football "supporters":
The hooligans are going from rocks and sticks to firearms these days; how long before football is all about mushroom clouds?

Smoking kills

2005-04-29T16:31:00.000+02:00

In my case it kills my financial situation, so despite my actual love for smoking (I've never had any other relationship last eight years) I have now gone almost four days without a single intentional inhalation of toxic fumes (not counting exhaust gases at work, of course). I have resisted every temptation to buy cigarettes, and tried to spend as much time as possible with my new female companion, which has actually proven to be quite a remarkable way to take my mind off the addiction.

My greatest fear in this situation is that if I come to the conclusion that my economy once again can support this lethal addiction, I might fall back into the habit. I can control most of my bodily functions and emotions through will power, but smoking is on the absolute edge of what I can handle. Insanity seems to help, so if you see me climbing things or hear me making odd noises you know why.

In the beginning...

2005-04-27T10:04:00.000+02:00

One day, after a near eternity in the Garden of Eden, Adam calls out to God, "Lord, I have a problem."

"What's the problem, Adam?", God replies.

"Lord, I know you created this place for me, with all this lovely food and all of the beautiful animals, but I am lonely."

"Well Adam, in that case I have the perfect solution. I shall create a 'woman' for you."

"What's a 'woman', Lord?"

"This 'woman' will be the most intelligent, sensitive, caring and beautiful creature I have ever created. She will be so intelligent that she can figure out what you want before you want it. She will be so sensitive and caring that she will know your every mood and how to make you happy. Her beauty will rival that of the heavens and earth. She will unquestioningly care for your every need and desire. She will be the perfect companion for you.", replies the heavenly voice.

"Sounds great."

"She will be, but this is going to cost you, Adam."

"How much will this 'woman' cost me Lord?", Adam replies.

"She'll cost you your right arm, your right leg, an eye, an ear, and your left testicle."

Adam ponders this for some time, with a look of deep thought and concern on his face. Finally Adam says to God, "Hmmm, what can I get for a rib?"

The rest, as they say, is history.

This little "history" was stolen and I do not know the origin. If I'm stepping on anyones copyright toes here, sue me.

[Swedish]

2005-04-06T07:56:00.000+02:00

http://www.bojkott.nu/

It seems I got it

2005-04-05T19:54:00.000+02:00

About three weeks ago I stumbled upon a bit of information regarding a local car garage looking for a mechanic. I went to talk to the boss of the company in question, thinking it wouldn't hurt applying for it, even though I had no real hopes of ever getting out of my current employment situation. He said they would review the applications the first days after the easter weekend and get back to me.

Come this monday I had almost forgotten about it, when suddenly I got a phone call from the boss mentioned earlier. We decided I would come by and look at their workshop and meet the other members of the staff this morning, which I did. 30 minutes later it was decided I will start as soon as possible but no later than May 1st.

After mentioning my new employment to my current employer we agreed that I will stay on until April 30th to give them some time to find a replacement. I know - finding a replacement for me is quite difficult, but at least I'll give them a chance.

Well, anyhow; wish me luck with my new job and all.

The truth uncovered

2005-03-28T11:08:00.000+02:00

Apparently she can communicate: Terri Schiavo's blog.

A report from the trenches

2005-03-19T12:17:00.000+01:00

I know some of you are dying to get an update on the situation involving the female I have been seeing, so I thought I'd post a little note on the subject.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I decided last weekend that I would let her make further contact unless there was something in particular I wanted to talk to her about. Said and done, on tuesday afternoon I called her to ask if she wanted to join the usual suspects for a couple of hours of poker the same evening, which she politely declined with a good excuse. Against any odds I might have set up for her calling me within the next week she actually did on thursday evening, asking if I wanted to meet her this weekend. Trying hard not to sound too enthusiastic (like any nerd would when a girl wants to meet him) I agreed to call her on saturday (today) to set up a movie date.

Now I'm off to pick up my mother who has been shopping food for dinner tonight.

My name is uid0 and I'm a gambling addict

2005-03-17T02:57:00.000+01:00

Just to clear up a few details: Freerolls are tournaments without buy-in, which means it costs absolutely nothing to play. Depending on skill level and number of players it may take up to a couple of hours, and since I somehow busted my back by catching a cold (?) I'm not going to work tomorrow, so a few hours playing poker online won't hurt when there is a slight chance of winning money.

I enjoy the game and get an adrenaline rush every time I place risky bets or go all-in, but I have no intention what so ever to make this a full time job or to spend all my hard earned cash trying to win back previous month's hard earned cash - that would just place me in a downward spiral leading to my own destruction.

So, if you notice me getting all crazy and spending way too much time and money on gambling of any kind, please do not hesitate to grab me by the arm and shake me about a little.

Selling my soul for chips

2005-03-17T01:27:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I accidentaly joined a couple of friends playing poker (the Texas Hold 'Em kind), a game which I had never played before. After learning the basics and playing a couple of times, this past sunday evening I decided to give online poker a try. After a couple of days of not really knowing how to play smart and dropping out of a couple of freeroll tournaments, tonight (just about ten minutes ago) I managed to (with the help of a good friend with a great deal of card playing experience) make it to 299th place out of 8980 players in a $1,000 freeroll tournament. Had I made it to 260th place I would have received $1.50, and had I reached first place I would have received $134. Now I'm signed up for another identical tournament beginning in 25 minutes, so I better go out and have a smoke and recharge my adrenaline glands before it's time to get serious again.

Wish me luck.

Oh, dear...

2005-03-10T23:08:00.000+01:00

I'm not quite sure what to say or do, or even where to say or do it. Women will be the death of me.

She came here tonight to watch a movie. Besides watching the movie we took a break and went to look at an apartment that she's moving to this summer. On our way back from said apartment to my place to finish watching the movie we dropped by at a mutual friend of ours to get a CD and exchange a few words about pretty much nothing worth mentioning at all.

After the movie we talked about music for a while, and then she decided she needed to go home to get some sleep before work tomorrow. Since I'm in the same situation (of needing sleep before going to work) I couldn't more than agree and said good bye, silently ignoring my wish to first hold her in my arms for a while.

On an entirely different subect; I can really recommend Roger Waters' album "The pros and cons of hitch hiking." I rediscovered it about a week ago after not listening to it for a couple of years, and it still impresses me.

Time to place my head on the pillow. Good night.

She's quite amazing

2005-03-06T23:08:00.000+01:00

I did not have very high hopes about her before going on the date tonight. After all, I had only spoken a few words with her before.

She's simply lovely. Gorgeous, smart and with quite sensible looks on life and the world. What remains to be discovered is whether she is lovely enough for me to find her interesting in the long run, as well as whether or not she finds me interesting enough to care what I think about her.

All I'm afraid of is the risk of me falling for her too soon and then realizing she's not interested, a situation I'm all too familiar with.

I will think about this matter until tomorrow, while catching some well deserved sleep.

I'm hungry, and I mean that in an entirely nutritional way.

Gmail

2005-03-04T09:01:00.000+01:00

I currently have 50 invitations to Gmail to share with anyone who wants one. If you feel a need for a web based e-mail service that will never die and a massive 1GB of storage for your inbox, send me an e-mail and tell me who you are. Individuals attaching a photo of themselves with their request will get an invitation without further delays.

I did it!

2005-03-01T22:48:00.000+01:00

I called her! She didn't hang up on me! Yay me!

What to do?

2005-03-01T14:59:00.000+01:00

In a parallel dimension from this one I would have already called her, taken her out on a date and impressed her beyond imagination.

In this dimension I'm stuck on questions like "what should I say to her?" and "how does one go about talking to a woman whom I have met but never spoken to?", leaving me with a head full of thoughts but no real answers.

I seem to remember whining about the topic of calling women before, but I fear this is a bit different. Compared to the other women I've mentioned, she's far too cute for me to just write off as 'not worth the hassle'. I simply have to do something.

I guess I will call her tonight. Wish me luck.

Paranoia and people to count on

2005-02-22T19:40:00.000+01:00

In a fit of complete lack of anything better to do I decided to check out a couple of blogs I happen to have bookmarked, and was pleased to see that en0l had submitted another semi-nonsense post yesterday. While reading through it I noticed two links, both of which I placed in the back of my head as things to return to when I had finished reading the post, since some people have the nasty habit of creating links that replace the contents of the current window. Upon reaching the last line of the post I went back and noticed that the first link was something about the Paris Hilton cellphone hacker chaos unleashed on the intarweb a couple of days ago (a link that did open in a new window but ended up at a 404, I might add), while the second link had something to do with blog author paranoia and linked directly to... my blog. I know I'm considered by many of my friends to be paranoia incarnate, but to link the word "paranoid" to my blog?

To be quite honest I don't remember if I actually laughed out loud when I read it or if I just smiled. Posts like these contradict my personal belief that every single person I know are boring idiots that don't understand a joke if it does not involve someone getting hurt or something at least remotely seuxally. I don't know if I would still be alive if it wasn't for the uplifting phone conversations I can always rely on en0l supplying me with when I'm feeling shit out of luck at work.

If I were to end this post here without at least mentioning en0l's girlfriend she would simply kill me since she's been asking me a couple of times to write about her in my blog. Hey, I guess I'm fresh out of imagination, because I can't think of anything to write about her other than what I already mentioned. Oh, and that she has lovely eyes; she loves that.

What happen?

2005-02-18T07:45:00.000+01:00

I'm sitting here on the corner of my bed, listening to Elton John and reading a couple of blogs. The list of blogs I have bookmarked as tabs includes my own, and I noticed some time has passed since my last post. What better way to spend this early friday morning when the World of Warcraft servers have been taken down for maintenance than to toss together something for you, my readers to start your day with?

At eight in the morning those of my regular readers not sleeping in my bed at the moment are hard at work, and so I guess most of you are well on your way towards lunch before reading this.

Oh, did I mention I moved? I now live in my own bedroom in a real apartment. I think this room is the biggest of all the bedrooms I've had through my life. I have all my three monitors standing next to each other on a table at the foot of the bed, and my TV is at the middle of the opposite wall, so there's quite a lot of empty floorspace at the moment.

It's getting close to the time when I should start getting to work, so you'll have to make do without anything interesting to read from my part of the world.

Don't you feel like crying?

2005-01-04T23:12:00.000+01:00

She was my first of sorts, and in some ways she still is. Had I not done what I did, neither of us would be who we are today, and I truly believe we both live richer lives now than we would have in the parallell universe where things went the other way.

I can't quite figure out a working philosophy covering whether or not it's plausible that our relationship of seven years ago either doesn't affect or improve our mutual interest in each other in the present. All my conclusions in the matter point to the probability that she still hates my guts but had a momentary lapse of reason (any Pink Floyd fans reading?) on new years eve. I have no way what so ever to actively find out how true my theories are, unless I reach the point where I feel I might as well rip my own heart out and hand it to her to see what she does to it.

Where is the fucking rulebook on this kind of shit? If you find yourself having a crush on some unknown woman you simply make sure to get her number or address and give her a call or send her a nice note or bunch of flowers. If the woman is a friend or a friend's friend, the deal is even easier. What the hell are you supposed to do when the woman is a former girlfriend to whom you have not spoken in several years and with whom you have no current relation or means of casual contact?

It's not like I want to sign a contract on a life long relationship, but the woman I met a few days ago only visually reminded me of the girl I knew seven years ago. Her personality has matured amazingly (which I guess seven years do to most people), and this intrigues me to the point that I want to get to know her (again).

If anything happens I will keep you posted. Don't hold your breath.

Ouch!

2005-01-04T05:20:00.000+01:00

I woke up at about 0450 (that's in the morning for you 12h people) with intense pains in my arms. I still can't stretch the arms straight out with fear of muscles snapping, but at least they don't feel like they're going to break.

This incident resulted in me remembering what I was dreaming just before waking up. It was a strange dream for sure, but the strangest detail of all was that a former girlfriend of mine showed up in it. She was all friendly and stuff, and even kissed me on the back of my shoulder at one point, with really made me wonder what the hell was wrong. This is not the same girl as the one I met on new years eve, but a certain individual I spoke to about that incident thought it was this girl I met in that situation. I suspect that this individual mentioning her set this dream off in the first place.

I hate dreaming about girls, especially former girlfriends or girls I for some reason or another have had a crush on. In most of my dreams, girls who are pure evil in real life (which most of them are) act like we have never had a fight or even argued about which channel to watch on the TV. I find this disturbing, since I hate dreaming lovely things and then waking up to my hateful reality.

Thanks to the female individual who passed me the URL in the link above; you're not like all the rest.

Online loot!

2005-01-03T01:53:00.000+01:00

Ok, it's ridiculous, but I found a bunch of online lotteries (or whatever you might want to call it). Since the chances of winning increases if I invite other people to participate in each lottery I'm posting the URLs here:

http://calsms.com/24/36/160/460282/460502
http://calsms.com/27/39/257/460281/460604
http://calsms.com/34/45/230/460279/460588
http://calsms.com/37/49/303/460277/460666
http://calsms.com/36/47/277/460269/460629

Please help me win! Oh, and if you do not want to participate yourself, please redistribute the above URLs to other people.

If you find other lotteries with the same type of strategy and need to increase your own chances, do not hesitate to invite me.

Chances are these lotteries are available only for Swedish residents, but I'm not entirely certain.

A new year of ranting

2005-01-02T02:54:00.000+01:00

Happy new year, dear readers.

This year started out in the strangest way possible for me, but I have yet to decide whether or not it did so in a positive or negative way. New years eve more or less started with dinner with my mother and one of my brothers, after which I went back home and checked on IRC while pondering over what to do at midnight and - more importantly - where to do it. Rumors had it a friend of mine had a party, so I went there to check it out and instantly received an offer to buy a bottle of vodka (since I had no alcoholic beverages and this particular festivity more or less requires some level of drunkedness). After about five minutes of careful consideration I drove my car back home and took a fifteen minute walk back to the party, stopping by at Shell for cigarettes and a bottle of Schweppes mixer.

The party went on as new years parties mostly do, with most participants getting slightly drunker over time up to midnight, at which fireworks are launched and admired. After that it's all downhill for some people, and this year I admit to being one of those people.

What made my new year start in what in my opinion was a strange way had little to do with the party itself, though. One of the guests at the party was a young lady with whom I had a relationship seven years ago. We had not talked much since then due to various reasons and other people's involvement, but for some reason she initiated a game of drunken catching up while we were outside smoking. Whatever the reasons might have been for us to drop contact with each other all those years ago neither of us seemed to care.

Somehow I ended up sleeping at her place (the official excuse being that her apartment is much closer than my residence to the location of the party) and despite my usual drunken horniness, her exquisitely beautiful body and me sleeping next to her nothing happened. It's terrible, but it seems I have grown so accustomed to my earlier vow of celibacy that even a gorgeous woman whom I have loved before and undoubtedly would love again if given the chance could break my cool.

The downside of this is I'm probably not going to stop thinking about her for a couple of weeks. I broke her heart once and so I figure she has all the reason and excuse in the world to break mine, but the question is if I should give her the opportunity. However minimal, there is still a chance she would not want to break it but keep it, and I'm quite sure it's better I give her the opportunity and take the chance to win her than simply closing that door without exploring the possibilities.

Love and its related emotions is probably the most dangerous drug in circulation: It directly influences most vital parts of the brain, often results in senseless expenses, alters the personality and may result in international war - the only thing it has no way of accomplishing without outside help is killing the intoxicated individual. Why hasn't it been outlawed, put under strict control or taxed to insanity like everything else with similar effects?

Tsunami

2004-12-31T13:15:00.000+01:00

The intense media frenzy over the tsunami aftermath in asia has dulled my interest. We are literally flooded with pictures and information about how it happened, why nobody was warned, how many died, how many are missing and so on, and it quickly becomes too much for those of us who have no friends or relatives in the area.

We must not forget that there are people suffering, though. Please shut off the TV or throw away the newspaper if you find yourself hit with too many handycam shot of the water rushing into hotels, images of relatives crying, maps of the area with the quake epicenter marked with a big red circle or simply death tolls. Instead, pick up the phone or your web browser and find the best way for you to donate money to legitimate help organizations operating in the critical area. You do not have to donate everything you own to make a difference, just send whatever you can spare. If we want to make this a better world, we must start by learning to care for people we do not know.

Here is an image of one of the beaches hit by the tsunami that has been shown in the media in the last few days. WARNING! The image contains quite a few corpses - sensitive viewers be careful!

Below is a link to Aftonbladet (a swedish tabloid newspaper), which has organized a joint fund raiser with swedish TV4 and the swedish Red Cross. If this is not appropriate for you for any reason, please try to find some other way to donate, but be cautious of fake fund raisers - make sure you donate money to asian aid and not to someone's personal gaming debt.

[Swedish]
Du kanske inte har vänner eller släktingar i det drabbade området, men många andra har. Aftonbladet, TV4 och Röda Korset har en gemensam insamling till förmån för de drabbade i området.

http://www.aftonbladet.se/flodvagornasoffer/

Om du inte vill skänka pengar via just denna insamling, sök efter andra möjligheter att bidra.
[/Swedish]