Well I decided that last night I should stay in. Even though there were plenty of people calling and asking me to go out just for a few hours. But I was actually feeling weak. I would get dizzy when I stood up, and I ended up sleeping about 15 hours yesterday. And it was all much needed sleep in fact.

Yesterday was quite weird as well. Imake chicken tikka masala for dinner last night. and throughout the day was drinking white wine. when i fell asleep after dinner, i had a really hard time breathing. i mean very hard. so much so that i thought about going to the hospital. I am wondering if I was allergic to something in the dinner I made (never happened before= or whether I was just too congested to eat food that was a bit spicy? Not sure.

So today is all about more relaxing and recovering to prepare for the week. And in the process of sitting around the apartment, I will be burning about 30 CDs. I have about 6400 songs already in iTunes. And I need to get all of my CDs into iTunes before the end of April. And I have about 230 CDs to go. When everything is said and done, I should have around 8000-9000 songs in iTunes (not counting about 200 various types of videos). And now that I think about it more, I think I am going to need a new media backup drive. but I don’t feel to pay SEK 8000 for a terrabyte drive. But I may have no choice in the matter if I want to save all of my music, and make a complete system backup on my desktop and work laptop.

For those of you who read this who are not scandinavian (and that is most of you), we are now in February and it is still dark at 07.30.

What is striking is just how dark it is to be 07.30 in the morning. In most places now, the sun is well on the way up.

We only have about 6-8 more weeks of this. And then in late April and early May, the sun will never set completely, and the exactl opposite will be true.

Hope everyone is having a nice weekend! 🙂

I have a cold. It will require rest, relaxation, and some Baileys 🙂 I have been pushing my rather hard the last 2 weeks, and I will push myself even harder the next week when I have to be in 4 countries in 4 days.

I tried to go to the gym with a cold. Bad idea. I nearly passed out because I couldn’t get enough air when I was doing any aerobic activity (cycling, running, stairs, etc). I actually stopped after 25 minutes and went home.

Still haven’t eaten yet (still full from lunch), even though I know I am not really full and that I just lost my appetite due to the cold.

But no worries. Just rest and relaxation the whole weekend. And Nyquil and DayQuil 🙂

…to the other end of the pendulum. i am all for protest and boycotts when you think the cause is justified. but the burning of buildings and destruction of property? not a fan. yeah, and i have a problem with the death threats and the additional pictures never being published by the Danish newspaper being attributed to the newspaper.

unless the muslim communities get it together and protest in a peaceful and organised way, they will lose what support they have from people outside the muslim communities.

and oh yes, Fleming Rose should still keep quiet. indefinately.

This idiot, culture editor of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, doesn’t know how to just keep quiet. Everytime he opens his mouth or makes a statement, he just keeps on adding fuel to the fire. He totally cannot that he bears some responsibility for the situation that the Danish government and businesses find themselves in. He can’t see that his stubborness and reckless insenstivity to other cultures (and overt racism if you ask me) is a central theme to what is happening. And Danes reward his ignorance with not just asking him for all that s good in the world to shut his mouth. The freedom of speech also has a less-known counter-part, the freedom of self-restraint. That he now criticizes Syria and islamic religious figures only flames the situation.

And of course, some of the french newspapers and other european newspapers, standing by the concept of “press freedom”, published the cartoons again and took a position that every newspaper has the right to publish whatever it wants.

Yet the Danes, French, Italians, Norwegian, and other newspapers that published this cartoon miss a fundamental point. Yes everyone has the right to caricature anything they want. But with freedom comes responsibility. For a continent that has been throw two world wars, and a continent where it’s member countries have feuded for centruries, it should understand this concept better than everyone. Everyone recognises my right, my freedom, to yell “fire” in a crowded restaurant or on a plane. But we also have an expectation that I would not do so unless there was a real fire. It’s the responsibility of the individual, the organisation, and corporation, to be sensitive and attuned to the environment around them and act accordingly.

The cartoon itself, which I have seen, I could only describe as racist and insensitive. If they had denegrated a christian or jewish major religious figure in that way, the force of the response could easily surprass what we see today (I doubt flag-burning would happen, but you would see economic and other kinds of protests). That secular Europe places relegates religion to holidays and times when they behave badly, doesn’t mean we should act with insensitivity towards those faiths that make god a central tenet of their lives.

So yeah, before I step off my speaker’s box, the Danish government should NOT apologise on behalf of the people of Denmark. After all, the newspaper is not an extended arm of the government. However, it should warmly and cordially invite Flemming Rose to just keep quiet for awhile. Let the politicians and diplomats work this out. Acknowledge the root cause of the anger and the sentiment, and work from a platform of being open to understanding instead of defensiveness. Getting every newspaper in the world to line up in solidarity with you doesn’t change the fact that the people are on the streets of Syria, Indonesia, Iraq, the Palestinian territories, and other capitals are offened and upset. It doesn’t take a editor to comprehend that.

If you have never seen the animated TV show Drawn Together, it’s really funny. It crass very often but it’s so funny. It is an “animated reality TV show.” It is on iTunes now so I downloaded the first season. But I remember looking at one of the episodes last year on MTV Nordic and thought that it was just something that they were doing. It it is actually part of the Adult Swim night of the Cartoon Network.

The show kicks ass. And it is totally making my night (I have decided to stay in and have a soft night).

It’s been a mixed day, but things to be thankful for include:

• Marckus (sipho) — I am not sure why he hangs out with me (and I’ve even asked my mom to stop paying people to be friends with me), but I am not complaining 🙂
• Steve (sjneedham – always makes a bad day better, a good day great, and a great day fantastic!
• My dentist – who finished one of the two root treatments
• My ISP – Who upgraded the broadband connection for free and provided a new faster modem and wireless networking instructions
• (in alphabetical order) Markus, Max, and Warren – my best friends in Sweden. I would have never made it without them

Pictures from Berlin

Sorry that they are not so good, but it was a cloudy/grey day from the Berlin tower and this was the best I could manage. I promise that I will take better pictures when I am there in the summer 🙂

Notice me, take my hand
Why are we strangers when
Our love is strong
Why carry on without me

Everytime I try to fly, I fall
Without my wings, I feel so small
I guess I need you, baby
And everytime I see you in my dreams
I see your face, it’s haunting me
I guess I need you, baby

I make believe that you are here
It’s the only way I see clear
What have I done
You seem to move on easy

And everytime I try to fly, I fall
Without my wings, I feel so small
I guess I need you, baby
And everytime I see you in my dreams
I see your face, you’re haunting me
I guess I need you, baby

I may have made it rain
Please forgive me
My weakness caused you pain
And this song’s my sorry

At night I pray
That soon your face will fade away

And everytime I try to fly, I fall
Without my wings, I feel so small
I guess I need you, baby
And everytime I see you in my dreams
I see your face, you’re haunting me
I guess I need you, baby