COFFEE!!!

I have a percolator, fuck yeah!

LOL

*caugh*
*caugh*
Aheeem... Right. Wow. That was...

Was watching alpine skiing on Eurosport, and suddenly they cut for commercials and there's one of the skiers, Maria Hoefl-Reisch, cuddling a purple cow costume (Milka mascot/logo). Looked creepy as hell. Germans. *sigh*

Ubuntu and Me

As I told Rik earlier today, I always end up installing the latest version of Ubuntu on the nearest accessible laptop when left without any better activity for a few days.

This usually starts by a long and frustrating struggle to actually manage to install it at all. This time however, it was strangely compliant. I had a brief hickup when creating the bootable USB that was easily solved by just reformatting it from NTFS to FAT32.

The next thing that happens is that I get impressed by the built-in smartness like the all-inclusive instant messaging service. Why I continue to get surprised by it every time I encounter Ubuntu I do not know...

The next step is to get VLC and watch a movie from my Windows files - works like a charm, closely followed by a bitTorrent client...

By now I start realizing that the browser I'm using is Firefox, which prompts me to start looking for add-ons. After a few minutes trying to find an add-on that imitates one of Opera's standard features I somewhat sheepishly realize that there is indeed a Linux version of Opera.

This is when the fun begins. Downloading Opera is easy as pie. Installing it - not so much (for a Windows noob like myself). Double clicking the package actually does produce an attempt by the OS to install it, but it invariably fails.

I google "how to install a .deb file in ubuntu" and find an answer going somewhere along the lines "type X in command prompt". Easy enough...

..."how to open command prompt in Ubuntu" produces the following instructions: The easiest way to open the Terminal is to use the 'search' function on the dash. Or you can click on the 'More Apps' button, click on the 'See more results' by the installed section, and find it in that list of applications. A third way, available after you click on the 'More Apps' button, is to go to the search bar, and see that the far right end of it says 'All Applications'. You then click on that, and you'll see the full list. Then you can go to Accessories > Terminal after that. So, the methods in Unity are:

Dash -> Search for Terminal

Dash -> More Apps -> 'See More Results' -> Terminal

Dash -> More Apps -> Accessories -> Terminal

Keyboard Shortcut: Ctl + Alt + T

I decide to use the keyboard shortcut. It works. 'Nuff said.

Ps. The installation command failed though. Trying the other type of package that Opera provided. Ds.

Holiday Special - How to keep yourself entertained in the company of your family for 2 weeks

Starting out by watching Bad Teacher yesterday might have been a fatal error on my behalf. As I started looking through my hoard of movies to see I suddenly realize they're all very dark and depressing. All of them excellent views (I hope, at least that's why I brought these specific ones) but nothing that is just lightweight and fun.

Other than that my holiday at home took a dark turn right away, with one man being beaten to death in the middle of the street and another one shot in the chest 12 hours later. Suddenly my quiet little home town is on par with the big bad city of Uppsala in crime rate.

I have also concluded once and for all that my computer is indeed not capable of running WoW. Or well, if I set all the graphics settings to minimum and make sure to avoid major cities I can chat with my guild. Always something I guess.

Now, if you excuse me I'm going to watch a movie about a man who died in a violent car crash.

OK, I am convinced

First of all, check out this xkcd if you haven't already.

The first thing that struck me was the sheer amount of time he's put into this thing! That is the most extensive Angry Letter I have ever seen. My interpretation of it is that it is an argument for the Occupy Wallstreet movement. And he's made a very good point. Unfortunately I'm not so sure the people on that top 10 list would give up their riches in the first place.

My brain lost the concept of scale after the thousands chart. After that it just gets ridiculous. After some contemplation I am now a communist. Market economy has got to be the most stupid invention in the history of mankind. We need to revert to plan economy, preferably yesterday, or we'll all end up like Greece.

Ronery

I am a Skyrim widow.

Retail games

I've been thinking a lot lately about how physical copies of games are just being phased put, because the pro list usually ends up shorter than the one for digital downloads. I'm sure we've all gone through that in our heads at some point, so let's not dwell on that.

What I'm wondering is why do they not sell games on USB-sticks? Seriously! There are sooo many advantages to this, here's a few that I've thought about:

1) There are virtually no games these days that need to be installed. Most of the installation is just about unpacking the files and adding a couple of registry entries, and create a shortcut on the desktop. If the game was sold on a USB-stick it would be pre-installed, and the "installation" would take only a few seconds.

2) As a result, the game occupies no space on your harddrive. none. and you will never have to experience that feeling of wanting to play an old game you haven't touched for 2 years - only to realize it's no longer installed. best case scenario you have the disc and it'll only take a few minutes to install. worst case scenario it's a digital download, and will take 1-2 hours to download and install. yay.

3) The savegames are ALWAYS there, where you want them. when you want them.

4) you can bring your favourite game to a friend and play there without hazzle

5) copy protection of discs rarely work anyhow, and with most new games requiring an internet connection and registration on some account the copy-right issue is not relevant

There used to be technological problems with this - the game would simply be too expensive - but I can't see that being an issue any longer. A 16GB USB memory costs about 200kr nowadays, and that's when the store wants to make a profit of it. The actual cost of the materials and the production are a lot less.

the usb is kinda slow, but with 3.0 coming along that won't be an issue either. it's probably a bit more expensive, granted, but I'm not even sure you need 3.0... PCs nowadays have so much memory that they can load the files far in advance and store them in the RAM

But most importantly (for retailers at least) this is pretty much the only thing that would convince me to cough up those extra hundreds for a physical copy.

Hedgehog

I wish I had brought a camera when walking Harley tonight. We were walking along a gravel path and some 20 m ahead I see something small moving. After a few seconds I realize it's a hedgehog. Harley's previous reactions to hedgehogs made me very worried about the situation, so I stop when Harley spots it.

He reacts by lying down, much like when he sees a poodle or something of similarly diminutive size. The hedgehog meanwhile keeps on walking along the path, straight towards us! It seemed completely unconcerned about the huge dog and human up ahead. It gets closer and closer and I'm anticipating Harley's inevitable launch towards it, but it doesn't happen. Finally, when the hedgehog is right beside us it seems to realize the dangerous situation and goes into defensive stance. Harley still haven't moved, other than turning his head to follow it's movement very carefully.

After a few seconds, when nothing happens, the hedgehog very carefully tried to move forward again, and that's when Harley has finally had enough. So I yell a bit at him and slaps his nose to really get my point across: you may NOT eat hedgehogs! And then we go our separate ways. Me and Harley towards the dog pen, and the hedgehog resumes it's evening stroll.

Paintings

Now, the're raging on about Monet on TV. His paintings are nice and all, but no more than Carl Larsson, who's style I prefer a lot. But Anders Zorn was whicked good at painting water.

Screenshot

Poem to a Cat

I thefted a Cat

He didn't know where he was at

Also, he wasn't wearing a hat

What kind of a Cat is that?

Bring on the Song

Susan Enan rocks. Well, I suppose "rock" is not the best descriptor of her music, but still... In any case, with a little luck and some help from you guys I might be able to get her to come to Uppsala and play a house concert. Yes, you heard me. She would be playing unplugged in my living room. For this to happen I need to be able to bring about 20 people who are willing to donate a mere 10 euro to her, that's how she finances her house concert tour. So go check her music out and ask around. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I would be so sad to miss it because I don't have enough friends.

Ps. My favourite songs are Bird and Bring on the Wonder Ds.

Christopher Lee

Just to further prove that there is nothing he hasn't played, I just found out that he plays Kato in Mio, min Mio... Which, btw, was a co-production of Sweden, Norway and the Soviet Union

Top Gear

"I don't mind if cyclists wanna come on the road with their silly Victorian distractions - I'm not bothered ok - but they must behave themselves."

British

"Old Chap" is the cutest euphemism for penis I have ever heard.

Best TV show ever

So I've been watching Så mycket bättre and I have to say that it's the best TV show I've seen in... I've never seen anything better.
So far the best episode was number 3, where everyone did Petter's songs. Obviously the scale is different, but it's like watching Tina Turner, Rihanna, Bruce Springsteen and I dunno, George Michael making covers of Jay-Z's songs. Strange, unexpected and very, very good!