The Joakim Bergman Blog

Unwrapping my Star Wars: The Old Republic

2012-01-25T22:17:00.000+01:00

After having a very busy but satisfying day at work (isn't it fun when so many things are happening all the time?) I finally got to bring the little paper, that now will grant me an awesome evening, to the post office to pick up a package.

This is not a normal package.

This is Star Wars: The Old Republic. The irony is that my land lord has had my mail for some time now and it took me quite some time to finally get my hands on it. Things moves slowly in Gibraltar. Especially peoples heads (I'll elaborate later in another blog post about the Tax Office of Gibraltar).

Who is Jo Starbender?

Is he a Smuggler... or a Jedi Knight? As you remember from this blog post, I wasn't sure what class I would play. Still, today, I am facing the same problem.

The Smuggler is charismatic, clever and fun to play as some kind of sidekick to the main story... but is he really meant to be a main character? Is he meant to be able to stand toe to toe with a Sith Lord or even a Bounty Hunter? No.

Since I first heard of the game I've pictured myself as the sneaky Smuggler that took care of the economic part of the war, smuggling goods back and forth to fund my guilds war efforts. Obviously I knew this wouldn't be the reality. This is not how the world of MMO-games work at the moment (with the exception of the brilliant, but complex game EVE-Online).

Well, I think that decides it. Jedi Knight it is. Simply because I wont be able to play the Smuggler as I've imagined it.

Who wants to play with me?

Although the game hasn't impressed me before I've actually given it a fair shot... I think that this will probably beat most current MMO's out there (maybe not EVE-Online). For a "hey, I need to please everyone" kind of Game, I'm confident in the developers behind the game, despite my earlier complaints during beta.

I would like to try to see if I can get all my friends into my Guild, or alternatively joining a friends guild. Playing together is always more fun.

Who wants to play in Momentum? Does anyone have a spot for me? Which server should I play on?

Until I see you in game, here's an old Star Wars classic:

SOPA/PIPA/ACTA: No more sharing!

2012-01-23T20:30:00.000+01:00

Read about "Black March" here

That's right. The entertainment industry want to treat us all as thieves just because a few commercializes piracy (which I agree is bad). YOU ARE A THIEF TOO!

Imagine your neighbor robbing a bank. Then you both get put behind bars. You are both being punished for a crime only one person did. Do you think this is fair? Then SOPA/PIPA/ACTA is for you.

I wont bother explaining them all in detail, but you can get a pretty good picture by simply viewing the brilliant video in the end of this post.

Newsflash: Sharing is FREE marketing
Note: The facts below are not 100% accurate, but should give you a good idea

What many people in this industry STILL don't understand is that most of their products wouldn't have had a chance without sharing. Person A downloads game X. He plays it and then tells his his three best friends, B, C and D about it.

Person B then also downloads the game (and tells three of his best friends). BUT(!!) person C and D goes to the store and BUYS the game, and then tells their three best friends about the game.

Result: Per 1 person that downloads game X, you in average get: 3 people acquiring the game where 50% are downloaders and 50% are buyers. around 75% would probably have never heard about game X unless person A had downloaded it and spread the word.

The important fact here is that the game developer probably have earned money on this action, but he probably doesn't know it. You simply can't count every download as a loss. Merely an investment where the ROI not necessarily is optimal, but definitely positive enough to be profitable.

Please do let me know if you want me to elaborate. I could probably spam an entire blog post about it :P

Bye Piratebay, bye Megaupload, bye Sharing
Yes, these sites might be partly censored or even completely shut down. No more sharing, thief!

You people are probably too darn lazy to do anything about this. I bet you are sitting in your computer chair right now thinking "nah, it will never happen, someone else will fix it for me". Well it is time to wake up. There is no someone else. There is only you.

Similar things already happened in Sweden (IPRED, FRA etc.) and no one really thought it would happen... that "someone else" would fix it.

I will now ask you to do only two things:

1. Watch the video below
2. Think for yourself: What can I do to contribute?

What I have done to contribute is to change my profile pictures everywhere to the picture in the top of this post, to spread the video below and to try to in general spread the word as best as I can. You can do either more or less than me. It is up to you, no one is forcing you.

I bet you wont do shit to contribute. Care to prove me wrong?

This is my job! (finally!)

2012-01-21T14:48:00.000+01:00

Okay, I have probably been a little bit too careful with what I can say or not. So here we go: I am the Head of Customer Communications for a marketing company called Traffic Generation. We do many different things, many projects and lot's of interesting things to do every day. Can't wait to get back to work on Monday, especially since there will be some new cool stuff in our office. :)

Being a part of a team

It feels nice to, after six months of involuntary holiday, get back into a team of creative minds. Especially when all of us share the same ways of thought (is that how you say it?). It feels really good to be stepping up from a Community Manager role to an extremely challenging Head of Customer Communication role, where I basically decide everything myself. Huge pressure but I must say that I've learned a lot in just a few days. I am the expert, I am responsible for the results. If things goes to shit, it's on my head, but if things go well... then I will enjoy multiple mental orgasms. I like this.

Next week there will be a big chance that I will be working totally alone for a few days, since Johan probably have become a daddy by then and my boss is dealing with some important business stuff. Speaking of babies... I have a feeling that the baby will come tomorrow (Sunday the 22nd). Let's see if I'm right!

Good places to eat in Gibraltar

Since I recently have been both very impressed by some places in Gibraltar as well as LESS impressed I would like to take a moment to list the top 3 restaurants as well as my top 3 recent disappointments (going from good to bad).

Good places to eat in Gib:

1. Charlies Tavern
2. Cafe Rojo
3. Taps Bar (new!)

Motivation: Even though I would like to also include the Ocean Village Mexican place I fear that even though they have improved, they are not really qualified for the top 3.

Charlies Tavern in Ocean Village has a good mix of excellent Indian food (best in town!) with an awesome grill cuisine. Whatever you order is just awesome. The service is mixed... the guys tend to be really nice but the girl waitresses can be a bit rude at some points (blaming the customer for their mistake etc.).

Cafe Rojo in Irish Town has recently started to really impress me. Their food is done with a "feeling" so to speak. They care for their food as well as their customers. Top service, small menu but at least something really tasty for everyone.

Taps Bar is the new place behind KFC in Ocean Village that has tables with beer taps built into it. Really awesome concept and the tapas their is the best ones I've had in Gib, by far. The service is probably also the best one in Gib - you even sometimes get a ketchup smiley face on your tapa burger. Lovely little detail.

Places that nowadays SUCK!

1. Lord Nelsons
2. O'Reilly's
3. Bianca's

Motivation: Both Lord Nelson and O'Rielly's has the same owner... and you can kind of tell. Once they were both really good, mostly because of the really nice staff that both cared for their customers and could manage to deliver good food in little time. Now they have cut down on staff and hired cheap holiday party girls/guys that don't care what so ever about the customers, the service or the quality of the food. Honestly some of them look quite drunk/hung over and a little bit like they've been in a huge orgie the day before.

Bianca's just have crappy and expensive food. The only thing I like there is the Garlic Mushrooms. I must say that their dessert is quite nice, but you pay quite a bit for it and the glasses they use make it look like you get more than you actually do. Cheap illusion trick. The service is okay though.

So how is it going in Europa Universalis III?

Well, quite well actually. I've strengthened my economy A LOT recently for Sweden. Also I have colonized parts of Greenland, West Africa and the Canary Islands. I also managed to invade some North American Indians near Florida and steal some land from them. But enough goofing around with colonies when I have a more important continent to conquer: Europe!

Wish me luck!

Management at work and at home

2012-01-18T20:07:00.002+01:00

Today was my third day at work! Wohoo! Today I learnt that my boss is made of steal, that Johan is in fact slightly retarded (and that I am too).

Side Note: I did want to write about SOPA (read more) today, the new weapon against piracy and also your privacy, but feel that I need to read up a bit more to make be completely fair. Soon you will see a dedicated blog post about this and learn the true reason behind this powerful weapon of an unworthy (and self proclaimed) world police: the USA.

Out of the ashes and into the fire!

After a few days at work I finally start to get used to the old rhythm of going up early in the morning and sitting in front of a desk spitting out ideas and creating plans and content for the current projects. I love it.

Still I want to be careful about what I work with and where I work. I can tell you that I will continue to work with the stuff I really love: Communication, Creative Thinking and close Team Work with awesome colleagues.

Europa Universalis III - A game you probably can't handle

I am also managing things at home, like the Swedish Nation in the game Europa Univeralis III: Divine Wind (Patch 5.1). It is a very complex game similar to the board game Risk, but very much more complex, where you actually have to rule the nation in every way you can imagine. Many things to keep track of, but it never gets boring bashing the Danes out of Scandinavia or challenging the Russians to the east.

The game is a few years old, true, but the constant releases of expansions keeps the game fresh and up to date. Since I played it many years ago it is almost completely different in it's details, but still got the same charm and purpose. I wonder how successful I would be colonizing North America with Swedish Colonists. Will The United States of America be with me or against me once the thirteen states gets pissed of at England and decides to go their own way? Or... should I do what Sweden does best: Staying neutral?

Who the f*ck is the Golden Horde?

Right now I have beaten Denmark and forced Norway into becoming my vassal. Hopefully I will soon be able to annex their nation.

The game is very complex and it takes a strong brain and a lot of patience to be able to handle it, but once you have gotten past that obstacle I can promise you that this is a game that you would love. Really good work Paradox Interactive. This is possibly your best product ever. Credits to my friend Sara Wendel-Örtqvist who has been working on the latest expansion of this game.

I was very inspired by this guy, an... American(?) playing as Sweden and recording everything on Youtube. Ladies and Gentlement, I give you... MindofScience3!

Is this a pointless question at a job interview?

2012-01-15T18:49:00.001+01:00

There have been a few discussions lately about one certain classic question that almost always shows up in job interviews. If you haven't guessed it by now: "Where are you and what would you be doing in X years?".

This question has a theoretical purpose but no practical point.

From the English "The Office" in case you went "WHOOT?!"

Theoretically it is a good question to ask

In theory this question is good to ask to find out if the candidate is ambitious or not. If he/she might threaten your own position or if the candidate simply have no ambitions what so ever. It is simply good to know what kind of person you would be dealing with.

In my opinion, the perfect answer would be: "I will be in whatever position I can do the best possible job for the company I am working in.".

Of course, that comes of a bit cheesy. I have used it myself and the person interviewing me wasn't really satisfied with the answer (even though i.m.o. she should have been since it was quite clever :P).

Practically there is (mostly) no point asking it

Most people who do interviews don't know how to process & analyze the answer or even why they are asking it in the first place. Some people might understand it though and try to analyze it, but the chance of misunderstandings and failure to understand the point of the question from either side will probably sabotage the interview more rather than doing the opposite.

The exception?

I would like to ban this question from any interview that doesn't include a very experienced person who does the interview who has complete understanding of the question and how to analyze & process the answer it. It should also only be asked to people that are being hired for position deep down in the chain of command. It would be good to know where you have your "grunts". Will they need advancement to stick around or not? To ask candidates for higher positions is useless. If they were not ambitious they wouldn't be applying for that position anyway.

Instead you might want to ask...

Instead of asking this (in my opinion) useless question, the one who gets interviewed should instead be asked: "Where do you see this company in X years and how would you have contributed to the result?". Anyone I would hire should have his/her focus on the performance of the company rather than any "gold digging" dreams of his/her own.

NOTE: This only applies if you can't make an exception like I described above.

Also, this is how you alternatively could do your interviews (how I would prefer to do it) :P

Never again a Creative Assembly game...

2012-01-12T13:33:00.001+01:00

Okay I've had enough. You guys have gotten more chances than you deserve. The only reason I kept buying your games was really because some of my friends work for you, but now I've truly had enough of unplayable bugs and crappy support.

This is going to be blog post of flame and heat. Prepare yourselves.

Rome: Total War - Shogun: Total War (good - horrible)

From the first game they did really well, Rome: TW (or rather Barbarian Invasion which was the most playable version of the Total War games), Creative Assembly have been going downhill when it comes to their programming. Many of their games have unplayable bugs and always have had. Once they move on to a new title they always abandon the old ones and simply stop caring about people that still plays them. Creative Assembly leaves a trail of bugs and I can still not remember a single title since Rome: TW Barbarian Invasion that has been playable all the way from the beginning to the end.

I know a Game Studio is like a family and it is hard to get people go, especially programmers since they are so hard to replace. If you want to finally create a game that is playable (okay, Shogun was an improvement but then again... the game was mostly random and had no soul), you have to let some people go and hire some new talent. Also, a change of attitude and an improvement of customer communication would be a big step in the right direction. So far I have browsed over 30 threads about problems where none has been resolved. Not even by the players (who usually are the ones that manages to fix your games).

Since the fiasco of Shogun: Total War (or Total War: Shogun), you really have to make a big change if you want to ever be able to regain the respect that players once had for you.

Talking about flame and heat!

Check out my LCHF dish: Cream & Cheese filled Meat Loaf wrapped with Crispy Bacon. This was served with a Gorgonzola Mushroom Sauce. Here's some pics!

One week to go!

2012-01-10T13:04:00.000+01:00

I'm finally feeling a bit better after my roller-coaster fever. I'm glad that it wasn't the flu or anything, since I am starting my new job on Monday. I'm quite exited and have already started to write down a few ideas. Honestly I can't wait.

Getting the deposit back...

I've been trying for a week or so now to get the deposit back from my previous Land Lord. Easier said than done. Hopefully he will contact me today about it. It would feel nice to finally move on and get all that sorted. It is always kind of a hell when getting to this point. You never know what you will be charged for and not.

Starting my new job

At the same time as I don't yet know all details about what I will do, I can't wait to get there and start building up and shaping my area of the company. Very often you have to go through so many people to get anything done in the company, but now I am kind of my own boss and only need to consult the others now and then before trying something out.

The upside of working with few people and in a smaller company is that you know that the others work not for them selves but FOR THE COMPANY. The larger a company becomes, the bigger the competition gets... and that's when you get these people that just wants to boost their ego and "be right" instead of doing the right thing for the company. I remember that, in a previous company I worked, we had a html-coder-guy that cared only about his own ego than what was good for the company. He was impossible to work with and the results often resulted in bottlenecks that we later had to try to fix. So much extra work just to satisfy one persons ego.

Anyway, here's some pictures I know people wanted of our new apartment. Keep in mind that the furniture will arrive in 2-3 weeks!

Empty, but I got the essentials...

Not the most comfy bed, but the TV is close by :)

An EPIC WIN and a life indoors

2012-01-06T10:47:00.001+01:00

Before I say anything else: DEN GLIDER IN, DEN GLIDER IN, DEN GLIDER IN I MÅL IGEEN!

Now, you might wonder what that is all about. If you still haven't figured it out after using Google Translate, please watch the video clip at the bottom of this blog post. It should clear some things up for you.

Fever, cough and long waiting time

This Tuesday I managed to get myself a fever. Yesterday my temperature returned to normal and today it is climbing back up. FML. Even more disturbing is the fact that I have been trying to update my Star Wars: The Old Republic now since... I got my fever. Every time it finishes something new pops up. Again, FML.

Empire: Total War, playable but highly disturbing

Before the Sweden Ice Hockey Finals of the Junior World Championship 2012 I felt a strong passion to fight the Russians for some reason. AND NO, I have not punched my girlfriend... I just kicked her a little (JOKE!). I resumed my previously postponed hard level game playing Sweden in Empire: Total War. I had just, after lots of struggle, beaten Denmark and was just about to reinforce my forces in Ingria, my stronghold versus the Russians.

ALTHOUGH: Even though this game is playable, the AI refuses to be logical in any way and how can Russia own a port in my recently conquered Denmark? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?

Enough about that, let's watch a beautiful moment of Ice Hockey History (Mika Zebanejad shooting the winning goal versus Russia):

... And yes, I have watched this clip a million times and cried each time.

Joakim's 2011

2012-01-03T20:05:00.000+01:00

I finally got internet in the new flat. This year has started with many new things. Presents, beardcut, haircut, friends, flat, computer chair and job. But that's the future. Let's lock back on the past year, shall we?

1) The Swedish team expands... and disbands.
Read about: Johans arrival; Håkan's first party in Gib (scroll down); Pelle "caking me".

This spring I was fortunate enough to make three new friends. Håkan, Johan and Pelle. Joining the Swedish PokerStrategy.com team that would... or should have become the greatest of them all, these new guys fit right in with me and Fredrik. We had lot's of fun during our time together, but everything's got an end.

Company Party Spring 2011, Håkan being the only one missing from the picture (probably shagging some girl in a red dress)

Fortunately the death of the Swedish Team didn't mean the end of any friendships, even though both Håkan and Fredrik left Gibraltar. Johan and I are now working together once more and Pelle is taking care of the Swedish and Finnish Community now at PokerStrategy.com. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

2) A VIP party to remember
Read more: The VIP Summer Party 2011 (Swedish!!)

Pure willpower!

When summer was finally "up and running", so to speak, we got more friendly visitors from Sweden. It was no other than the Swedish VIP & Community team from PokerStrategy.com.

We partied on San Juan and also managed to time the PokerStrategy.com Beach Party 2011 quite well. Lot's and lot's of fun. We even tied for first place in the beach party contests. :)

3) Gibraltar, Spain, Italy, England, Malta and Sweden!
Read more: Barcelona, Gib Underground #1, Seville, Italy, Gib Underground #2, Ronda, Dublin, London, Malta #1, Malta #2, Malta #3, Sierra Nevada (+movie), Sweden.

I've been traveling (and visited the underdark) like crazy this year. Not only to the amazing Barcelona and Sagrada Familia (wiki), but also to other amazing Spanish cities. Seville was really nice, with the Star Wars Palace, but I must say that the owner of the greatest views is definitely Ronda.

I then went to various interviews, in Dublin, London and even Malta, where the crazy, but creative friend of mine: Suzy, lives. Ironically she was in Sweden when I came to visit. How lol is that?

Next year Vlada and I will probably travel a bit as well. My current project is to get her to Sweden during the summer. :)

4) Losing one job, gaining another!
Read more: Fredrik and I leaving.

In the mid summer of 2011 something very bad happened, just like the year before when my brother (from another mother) passed away (read more here). The Swedish team had to restructure and 4 out of 5 team members was forced to leave. But it wasn't the end of the world for us. Håkan got a job at Google, Johan and I at this new company in Gib and Fredrik is being interviewed by some companies and it seems like it is going well. As they say: There is always light at the end of the tunnel!

5) Enjoying new friends and new games
Read more: My thoughts on some games

This year I have not only met new friends like Suzy, DhariDareDevil, Andy, Erik & Ellinor (and more), but I have also finally got to get my hands on a few new games. Some of the best games in a very long time has been released in a very short time. For instance, Skyrim (who would have guessed that?!), Star Wars: The Old Republic or why not Anno 2070? Good news is that more is to come. Can't wait!

A new life on the horizon - starts with a bang!

2011-12-27T17:25:00.000+01:00

Bang and ouch(!), to be precise. A life with a new hole in my mouth, a new apartment, a new job and a new g... no, I wont change my girlfriend. She owe me a massage now when Sweden beat Latvia with 9-4 in the Junior Ice Hockey Championship. She is too valuable to me. :)

A New Year with LCHF
Get wiser, learn a bit about this stuff | wiki link

After a little discussion on Facebook, I have decided to go back to LCHF except from at special occations. That is how I will roll. Not only do I feel better while on this diet, I also feel less need for sugar other carby stuff. I must admit it takes a while to get used to it though... and I'm NOT looking forward to those first few days.

Goodbye sweets and nachos, heeello cheese and... why not this tasty looking bacon meatloaf?

What about the Gaming Industry?
Here's some previous blabla from me about this topic | link

I've been blogging awfully much about myself lately and I regret that the subject of my big passion has fallen into the shadow. Well, it's about time we start talking games again. I have some thoughts on Star Wars: The Old Republic and its payment system, but also about the big titles of 2012 as well as the modern way to market games. But more about that later, I got too much on my mind to get into that right now.

Oh yes, just to double check. Did ANYONE not see this hillarious christmas clip from Jimmie Kimmel?

I took an arrow to the knee...

2011-12-24T10:42:00.000+01:00

First of all, Merry Christmas everyone! I've never understood why people write xmas. It's an X not a cross/criss/crist(?). Even more hillarious is that most people, inclusive English natives, pronounce it like "exmas", not "christmas".

I'm sitting here, with an injured knee, waiting for the first meal of the christmas eve: Porrige! Later we are following the Swedish tradition by watching Donald Duck, let Santa in to give us all the presents and then finishing the evening off with some Charles-Brighton Johnsson.

Of course, that's just the official end of the christmas eve. Us adults continue the night by feasting with various unhealthy beverages and ateable things.

Ending the year with pain.

You already know about the dread I am about to face with pulling out my wisdom tooth, but I have now also suddenly discovered that something is wrong with my right knee. After some discussion we suspect that the muscle from the top of the knee to the thie is "pwned" as nerds would call it. Also the knee cap is surprisingly flexible. Freaky feeling.

"The porrige is ready!" is now the words that will finally pull me away from the computer and start enjoying a Swedish Christmas Eve. Once again, Merry Christmas everyone!

Sweden and xmas, here I come!

2011-12-22T10:57:00.000+01:00

Finally time to get fat, open presents, get fatter of all the candy you got and then pull out a tooth. Good, good, good and NOOOO DON'T TOUCH ME, I CURSE YOU, I CURSE YOU!

I'm back on new years eve...?

Yeah... we all know how flights are during winter time. Either I'll crash and die or I will have to spend lot's of time on an airport because of all the "chaos". I mean, we have snow every freakin' year and still people are surprised when it comes. I'm not. I know people will die, I know flights will be delayed, I know it's going to be unusually cold for some weeks and unusually warm for some. It is called winter!

Oh, now... where were I?

Right, going to Sweden. First stop is my brothers place, next is my parents place where we will immediately celebrate my brothers 40th birthday. I'll have to make sure that I can get hold of the present I was thinking about.

Until then: Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year

I have to say, even though everything hasn't gone the way I wanted it to, things have turned out quite nicely. What I miss the most is my old friends and family from Sweden, but other than that life is pretty damn good!

See you all next year!

New apartments and offices

2011-12-19T20:34:00.001+01:00

Today I have been a very good boy. Not only have I used a couple of my mammoth-like muscles to move stuff from one apartment to another, I have also deposited £1420 that I had lying around into my bank account (I can tell you that it felt mildly disturbing carrying that amount of cash around in town) and finally also checked out the new offices where I will work from the middle of January onward.

Eurotowers, 5th block - Here we go!

Got almost everything moved over now. Just the last few essentials left in Kings Warf. The new place is amazing, the new land lord is amazing and it will be so much closer to everything... which brings me to next topic: What it is NOT closer to (the new office).

The new office is not far from Kings Warf, so ironically I will actually be moving further away from it - but hey - no one has died from a bit of exorsize. To be honest, crisps and nachos land has been my home for too long. Time to find my way back to LCHF... after xmas of course ;)

Oh no... It's now just a bit more than a week until I have to remove my wisdom tooth. I have truly never been this terrified in my life *sob*.

Movie Time: Sierra Nevada 2011

The job

2011-12-17T23:18:00.001+01:00

Hey guys. Long time no see! I've been in Sierra Nevada, as you all know and enjoyed my nose being burnt to something inhuman and my calf's being turned to minced meat (no, not the animal).

Finally I have signed the contract and is able to finally talk a bit about what's going on. To cut to the chase: I will be staying in Gibraltar, working for a new company in a senior position. More than this I can unfortunately not tell you until we are up and running. You entrepreneurs out there knows what I am talking about.

Staying in Gibraltar

It is not every day you get two offers to choose from and I kind of felt like I had some kind of luxury problem. Still, the choice process has been both difficult and easy. I had to choose between an awesome office and friendly environment at Betsson (now my favorite betting company, by far), and a newer company in Gibraltar. I could probably find these big corporate kind of jobs again in the future, but how often will these awesome opportunities come around where I can really express myself and do _my_ thing?

Also, of course, our future plays a vital part in the decision making. Strong vs. less strong economy and things like this is important if you think about starting a family sometime in the near future (relatives: don't get crazy, we are talking years here, NO ONE IS PREGNANT!).

Talking about pregnant, congrats to my two close friends Johan and Trine. I am honored that they will name their child after me. Thank's guys! <3

Now all energy will be focused on moving to a friends apartment and planning a lot of awesome business stuff.

Oh, so will there be a Sierra Nevada movie?

For now, you will have to be satisfied with some pictures, because my Adobe Premier keeps making my computer crash when I import the movie files. Still, I have to say that the pictures are great and it really shows how much fun we had over there. Too bad I couldn't show you the spa, but I can tell you that hot saunas + surprise cold showers were both scary and awesome.

On the road to something new...

2011-12-13T00:05:00.003+01:00

... and I not only mean going to Sierra Nevada skiing (that's where I am right now). I have also finally made a decision about my future. Unfortunately I cannot reveal much about it since it is a sensitive topic, but a choice has been made and I'm hoping that I will be able to tell you more in my next blog post. Promise.

On the road to something new...

Sierra Nevada then? Wzup with that?!

Starting the trip this morning by stocking up on snacks, drinks and medicine for the road, we finally made our way all the way to Sierra Nevada, Spain. Four star hotel with the whole kit. We didn't get any time for skiing today, but we got everything prepared for tomorrow morning.

We did try an awesome restaurant today, after playing some Magic and together embracing the beauty of nature music, and not only found it worth all the money we spent on it, but also managed to get Johans credit card eaten by an ATM. Now... I need to get better at making sentences shorter. Gah.

Tomorrow we are hitting the slopes, so better get to bed. See you in a way more interesting blog post very soon! Sorry for tricking you all that this was _the_ post.

Some amazing food at the local Swizz restaurant. 4/5 stars!

The Interview in Malta - Day 3

2011-12-08T21:02:00.001+01:00

After another, hopefully succesful interview by a laid back and down to earth kind of guy called Magnus. We had a nice chat about this and that, but in the end I got a very good feeling about both him and the company, just like I had in the prevous interview.

No matter if I end up with Betsson or not, I must say that they have been great to me and I think that they are a company that works in a fantastic way, which probably will give them much success in the future.

Talking about future... tomorrow we will know mine (or saturday, since I arrive home quite late).

An earthquake on wheels

Today I have explored the northern part of the island by bus. A bus that bounced more up and down than it was taking us forward. Also, the voice narrator was kind of off sync and parts of what she said wasnt true. "To your left you will see a tower...". There was no freekin' tower there! Just a cow that looked at me and said "moo".

Amazing landscape and history though, and I have barely seen half of it... if even that. I like Malta. Even if I don't end up with Betsson I will probably visit Malta again in the future. Except from their disguisting pizza and odd parking spaces in the middle of the street I quite like this island.

Pictures and... a video?
Updated Picture Gallery can be found in the first or second blog post about my trip

The Interview in Malta - Day 2

2011-12-07T17:08:00.001+01:00

I am happy to tell you that I have been called in for another interview/meeting. That is good news I guess? I can also inform you that I will make a decision by the end of the week about where I will live and work. Because of the offer I already have, I can't wait any longer. Stay tuned!

Horny drivers around the world
If you are horny, or just like this post, there is now a "like" function in the bottom of this post.

Today I have not only walked around the suthern part of town quite a bit, finding lots of shopping areas (and yes Vlada, I have your present), but also had the opportunity to observer a bit of the Maltese culture.

In Malta, drivers use the horn of the car to signal "Hey, I'm passing through this intersection", where in Gibraltar they use it mainly to communicate (they have certain patterns they use so that their friends will recognize them easily). In Sweden however, we the horn mainly to tell people to fuck off or get the hell out of the way. Charming, isn't it?

Right now I'm waiting for the Hotels pasta buffet and planning my last day in Malta. Tomorrow I will take a tour bus around town, see if I can check out some apartments and have a meeting with both the recruitment agency and a director from the company, probably to try to find out how much I know about the Swedish market.

Here is the Malta 2011 slideshow again, but now with some new pictures added!

Remember that the pictures also have descriptions!

The Interview in Malta - Day 1

2011-12-06T16:35:00.000+01:00

After a horrible flight, bouncing via Brussels and expericencing engine problems which caused delays (I was tempted to stand up and scream "THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE LEFT PHALANGEE!"), I have finally arrived in Malta.

From Belgian Chocolate to howling Taxi Drivers...

When strolling around in the Brussels Airport I suddenly lost all my taste for Belgium Chocolate (see picture), but was still amazingly quite satisfied over the meals of today (which they offered me for free on the flight!).

I finally arrived in Malta. I had the luck of be taken on a midnight tour by the proud Malteese senior man named Mario (it's a me, a Mario!). After being dropped off at the company apartment though, my luck changed again. The key didn't work to any of the apartments I was instructed to try. I think I scared some people quite a bit, 01:00 in the middle of the night.

Today I have had my interview with the iGaming company. I think it went good and I hope they liked me as much as I liked them. I am curious if I will get an offer and what it would be. Also I still haven't heard about Dublin so I am quite curious about that offer as well, if I get one. Although... I still have to make a choice between the Dublin, Gibraltar and the Malta job, if I get an offer from all three (I got an offer from the Gibraltar one though! A very good offer!). By the end of this week I will know what the future holds for me. Stay tuned, I sure as hell will :P.

After being taken back to the hotel by a taxi driver that was howling to Lady Gaga all the way back, I now check the internet briefly before going out and eating the first meal of the day. I wonder where I shall go...

Day 0-1 in pictures!

How was London?

2011-12-03T21:47:00.001+01:00

I just came back from London. Amazingly crowded city. One person almost got run over by a car at one corner and at another... a person was dancing in only his underpants (unfortunately my video is only of him being done dancing, sorry!).

Pickaxe dilly circus! (naked man just out of picture I'm afraid)

The mysterious restaurant of invisibility

Spuntinos

Spuntinos or something like that was the name, but who really knows the location? In this case, I think that is actually a very valid question. The point of this restaurant seem to be to actually find it. Believe it or not, it has NO signs what so ever. Quite a challenge, actually.

In the end we never got the chance to try it out, since it is extremely busy on a Friday night. Instead we ended up at Plum Valley, a Chinese place with bad service.

Let's play: Guess the whore!

B(r)e(a)st hotel in town!

The rest of the evening we spent at a really fancy hotel bar, playing "guess the whore". Probably half of the people there was whores or people looking for some high class tramp to bring up to his room. One guy brought three!.. but five minutes later one of them came back down and left in a hurry. Makes me wonder what he wanted her to do.

Amazing drinks, good company - successful evening!

London baby! and... then Malta!

2011-11-30T20:29:00.001+01:00

Greetings fellow readers. Once again I'm here to bore you with my job hunting adventures. As you all know, I have had another interview, but I wont say more than that I had a great time. This wasn't the Malta interview, which will actually happen early next week. But first... I'm going to London!(?)

London baby! Malta baby! Oh, god... I'm having triplets.
Read more about my interviews here and here.

I got invited by a friend to come on a short trip to London from Friday-Saturday. How can you say no to that? I have actually never been outside of, the extremely annoying, London Airports before so... I guess this will be something new for me to experience!

So what's this junk about triples. No mom, I'm not pregnant. But I have three interesting job opportunities to consider. I am very interested in a specific one, but obviously I cannot tell you which.

I still have not heard anything about the Dublin interview, but I should hear any day now. One interesting news is that early next week I will head over to Malta and stay there until Thursday, probably. Unfortunately my wacky friend Suzy is home in Sweden during this time so I cannot pay her a visit. Too bad, I really wanted to meet "Mr. O'rly". $5 to the first one who can guess who that is, and no Suzy, you are not allowed to participate OR tamper with this guessing contest :P. I will send the Moneybookers and no, I'm not joking ;)

The new Neverwinter game? Hmm...

I am honestly not very impressed so far, but it might be good. I am not a big fan of games that Cryptic have had a hand in (even though it is a Bioware game <3), since I rarely like how their games turn out... but I will probably give it a try. Here is the latest trailer for the game. What do you think about it?

Playing games while waiting...

2011-11-27T13:52:00.001+01:00

As you all know I am currently waiting for the feedback from the Dublin interview, but also for the date when my Malta interview will be. Waiting sucks. Will I get an offer? Will the Malta interview go well? If Both goes well, what would I choose? In my mind I kind of already know, but it all depends on the offer and how good they are compared to each other.

But... I have found a good way to make myself think less about these things for the moment, to avoid unnecessary mental torture. SKYRIM (Elder Scrolls V)... and SWTOR (Star Wars: The old Republic)!

SWTOR, WoW with light sabers?
Here's one of my previous posts about the game.

Okay, fair enough, I only tested the game for like an hour. Still I must say that a lot of how the game turned out to be is very different from Bioware's promises from the beginning. They hyped the game as a game totally different from WoW, something new and revolutionary. I am sure that the game has better story line, awesome voice overs and fun epic dungeons, pvp and so on... but is it really THAT revolutionary. On top of this, it is a Pay to Play game. This is a dying payment system. How will they compete with other, almost as fun to play, MMO's that are Free to Play? Age of Wulin is a good example.

Sorry Bioware, my most beloved game studio of all time, but I am not impressed. Still I will give the game a fair chance and play it until end game at least, but my expectations now are as low as they can be.

Skyrim makes me laugh and cry at the same time
Have you read my first post about my Skyrim Experience?

It is amazing how "alive" the game world is in Skyrim. If you wait a minute before rushing into a room full of enemies, stay a while and listen to what they have to say. Every place has a story, a purpose. I eavesdropped on two blacksmiths on the ground floor of an old fortress: "Sven got what was coming for him, but I don't trust what's going on downstairs." - "Be quiet, or you might end up there yourself, and I will have to work the forge!". Seconds later, of course, they were both dead. :)

My character is currently on the quest of mastering the different kinds of supernatural powers out there. After finishing at the Winterfall College of Magic he will study Vampirism and try to get infected. After that the plan is to become better at sneaking and thievery and finally he will join the imperials and tell them all about the Stormcloaks plans. It was a mistake, trying to join up with those people.

This is what makes me laugh, so what makes me cry? The lags, crashes and annoying graphics bugs that keeps showing up now and then. The game is playable, but it kind of ruins the immersion of my Skryim experience.

Last but definitely not least. Here is something, for you Swedes, that made me laugh harder than I have in a long while:

The power of... silence?

2011-11-24T12:48:00.001+01:00

Inspired by some dude that I don't know, but apparently cares enough about me to follow me on Facebook, I am today blogging about "the power of silence". Actually, it is a more interesting subject than you first think.

Just think about how employers, you just visited for an interview from, can make you feel by simply... saying nothing. Or when you come home and your girl/boyfriend looks at you and doesn't say a word. This is truly the power of silence to me.

5 ways of using silence to your benefit

1. When you are on a date, shut the fuck up and let the woman speak.
2. If you want someone close to really feel bad, just do what girls usually do. Look at them... with silence.
3. If you are insecure about yourself and feel like you have to make others feel bad to make you feel better, be silent and try to deal with your own problems instead.
4. When interviewing people, use silence as a way of testing your subjects ability to take initiative.
5. Be considered a good friend by shutting the hell up with someone is trying to tell a story/joke.

5 ways of messing up with silence

1. When answering a phone call.
2. When being asked a question.
3. When a girl you like tells you she loves you.
4. When in a life threatening situation where a shout could save your life.
5. When your boss is telling a joke (doesn't matter if it's good or bad).

There, that should have made your lives a lot easier to live. :)

Now, a tribute to my dear beloved friend Andreas Knöpke:

What happened in Dublin?!

2011-11-22T13:44:00.000+01:00

I'm back home... finally! Don't get me wrong. I loved it there, but the trip back was so bad you won't believe me when I tell you. My interview went okay and I just got another face to face interview for the Malta position, so things are going the right way at the moment.

Luckily for Håkan (whom I stayed at), we managed to find Google last Sunday and he apparently had quite a nice first day. Read all about it here!

Dream start, nightmare end

When arriving in Dublin everything was great. The interview was stressful but I think it went fine. We had some really nice food and we even got it cheaper at one point than the real price. Someone must have really liked us. How often does that happen, really?

Read more about my day to day activities in Dublin here.

On the trip back though... things went wrong wrong and WRONG! First, I jumped off the bus at the wrong terminal in Dublin. THEN when boarding they weren't happy with how I packed my bag, so they forced me to repack OR pay €40. Fortunately after repacking it twice they were finally satisfied. Ryan Air bitch.

London Gatwick. Sooo tired. Maybe there's a hotel nearby. Awesome, there's three! Wait. Two of them cost £150+ and the third one that is suppose to be as cheap as £25-50 (depending on if you want to stay 4 or 8 hours) only had premium rooms free for double the price. Fuck off. I decided to find someplace to sleep on the floor. This is the brightest part of the whole trip: I FOUND A CORNER WITH A TV WITH BATMAN ON IT! But then when having watched Batman and then A-Team on my ePC and decided to sleep nearby on the floor... "it" came.

FREAKIN' BEEPY CLEANING CAR THAT, I SWEAR TO GOD, CLEANED THE PLACE AROUND ME FOURTEEN TIMES BEFORE LEAVING ME IN PEACE!

*deep breath*

Later, just to piss me off more, the security bag scanner thing that I was queuing for broke, so I had to join the other queue. Then of course I was randomly selected for a body search. Score!

Oh yes, did I mention the waiting time in Gatwick was 10-11 hours?

Picture time!

Here's some pictures I took with my camera while being in Dublin. Go to the proper gallery to read my captions, explaining the pictures a bit better. ;)

This weeks second interview - done

2011-11-20T02:09:00.001+01:00

Wow, that was probably the toughest interview I have ever had, but I can't say I didn't enjoy it. Getting pushed once in a while is good for you, as SwedishMealTime would have said. So far in Dublin, having one and a half day to spare, I have been having a lot of fun. Not only have I had my share of alcohol, but also funny experiences and awesome food.

Arriving to Ireland was...

... scary. When landing at Dublin Airport I noticed something particular. Inside I found signs in English, but also in a different tongue. Apparently people in Ireland also speak by the tounge of MORDOR. "Póg mo Thóin" apparently means "Kiss my ass". After having the first beer on a nice little pub with Wifi on the thursday evening, we explored both nice wine restaruants as well as pizza huts and overprized kebab places where you waste too much money while being affected by the side effects of alcoholic beverages.

Speaking of which - on the friday we found lots of crazy norwegians... and then some more that we invited to join the scandinavian "blob" we now had formed on one of the party streets of Dublin. Although we left these guys when they started switching partners in the club and stuff... too weird for us. Well, we did meet some German girls afterwards and since I'm already taken I kindly handed over both to Håkan (who took very good care of them...).

Today we watched "IMMORTAL" on the cinema followed by some chinese take away and movie night at home. Good movie by the way. Lot's of nice action a la 300! Oh yes, I met Jussi Perkele today at a local pub. Was nice to see that ol' crazy Finn again. He also had some ideas about some other job opportunities if none of the current works out.

Me versus The Games Industry

I got a very good feeling about the position I applied for and the company seems very serious and skillful. Exactly what I like. Now I will have to wait and see what happens.

So, Lead Community Manager for a promosing MMORPG (Yes, I have done some research about it now when I know which game it is) or Social Media Specialist for a Swedish company that seems to have the same mindset as me when it comes to Community/Social Media Management.

Or... maybe something else! There is still a chance that both companies will say no. But surely two companies can't miss out on the fun, profitable and... perhaps a bit weird experience on working with me :P

Off to the Dublin interview... But in the meantime!

2011-11-17T11:00:00.000+01:00

After packing everything I need, I start to feel the purple butterflies in my stomach. The interview is one day away and I'm going to a place I have never been before. This is going to be awesome. Oh yes. I almost forgot to put my prepared Presentation onto my USB stick.

Blogging is a life safer.

In the meantime: Stop whining Bethesda!

I have been playing almost constantly since when I got the game, two days ago. I must say that I have split feelings about the game. It has many bugs (I know, I know, making Elder Scrolls games for PC is a pain!), but people have been making functional games for PC for a very long time. It shouldn't be that hard and frankly Bethesda Softworks, stop making excuses for why the game is not as good on PC and start doing something about it. No one likes a Game Developer that whines. Heck, who likes to listen to whine anyway?.. oh... sorry guys! I just realized the irony.

A bad ass Wood Elf Ranger called Loznáir!

Yes, once again my character is a good guy, but instead of being a total angel he has more of a "The Phantom" kind of moral. Be nice to me and I'm nice to you, but if you are a total idiot, then I'll rob you blind and kill all of your children.

What have I learnt so far?
- Don't mess with Giants, they fling you so hard up into the air that you, even though you are already dead, you are a little bit afraid that someone can't resist putting an arrow into your ass, for sport.
- DO NOT KILL THE HOLY CHICKENS! See picture below.
- Old women that live in the Forrest are actually quite bad ass on Magic. Do not anger them.
- It is very fun to scare undead to run away into all the traps you otherwise would walk into. For example the catapult gate was very amusing. When that skeleton finally hit the wall the bones split like fireworks.
- I should blogg less and play more.
- I should remember that my flight leaves any minute and stop thinking about Skyrim.
- I should go now.

Picture stolen from my niece's Facebook. Tnx!

See you on Monday for a full report on how things went in Dublin.

This weeks first interview - done

2011-11-15T13:47:00.001+01:00

*Phew*, feels good to have that off my chest. I think it went well. I got a very good feeling about the company, the people there and the location where the company is not as bad as I thought. I think I will be more okay with it than my girlfriend. She is quite picky ;)

Preparing for interview number two

Okay, time to start packing for the Dublin trip. I am very curious about this opportunity as well, since I haven't gotten much info yet. They decided to fly me over, skipping any phone interviews. At the same time as I have a really good feeling about the Malta job, I can't help wondering how it would be to become a Lead Community Manager for a MMORPG title.

It's like "safe choice" versus "mysterious could-be-the-break-of-a-lifetime-choice". Although the safe choice might also be my break. Hmm. Difficult, but I guess I first need to see if I get offered any of the positions at all.

Luxory problems...

STILL NO "!¤#/%( SKYRIM IN MY MAILBOX!

My neighbors must think I have serious problems (maybe they are right?), because I am checking the mailbox every two hours. It would be so much easier if I actually knew what time the mail man comes to our building.

While entertaining myself by solving really hard puzzles in Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012, I now and then check my friends list... finding them ALL playing Skyrim. This really annoys me. Everyone can play it except me! Oh my god. Just listening to myself makes me realize how pathetic I sound... think about all the starving children in Africa! I have it so much better... still... I WANT SKYRIM NOW!

Oh look! Even Arnold Schwarzenegger got the game already :( DAS SPIEL IST GUT!

A positive attitude is everything

2011-11-13T16:40:00.001+01:00

Yesterday my friend, again, reminded me how easily excited I get over things (he even compared me to the guy in the video at the bottom of this post). That made me think about how important it is to have a positive attitude towards things.

Believe in good things and they will happen!

You might not know it, but it is actually proven that people that believe that good things will happen will more often experience good things than people who believe nothing good is ever going to happen to them. You will also need the confidence and the will to succeed. Even more importantly you will need to be able to move on when things doesn't go as you hoped.

If you got this then you are already gone farther on the road to success than you thought.

Okay, seriously: Stop whining and just DO IT!

Life isn't easy. Everyone has bad things happening, more or less (even if it sometimes feels like everything bad is only happening to YOU and ONLY YOU!). "I want to work for Blizzard! Nothing else is good enough for me!". Get a grip. Nothing is easy. Everyone has to pull their own weight.

I lost my job a few months ago and you won't see me crying about it. Where many people sees problems, I see opportunity. I know what I want and sooner or later I am sure I will get there, no matter what it takes. You might think of me as an over confident ass that thinks too high of myself. Well, maybe, but I am also confident that you have a good chance of doing what would make you happy if you really put your mind to it.

If you feel that you are not the most positive person in the world, ask yourself this: "Where do I want to end up and what CAN I DO to get there?" Once you have the answer to that you should know exactly what to do.

Choices and Sacrifices

2011-11-11T18:33:00.001+01:00

Many things are happening right now. Most or all of these things are connected with choices and/or sacrifices. While some friends are choosing leaving Gibraltar, sacrificing their social life here, they are at the same time gaining other things. Some of them certain, some of them not.

Today my good friend Fredrik and his wacky girlfriend Julie moved to Sweden, next week Håkan is moving to Dublin. After that it is possibly my turn to pack my bags and leave.

Choices are easy...

It is always easy to choose to do something, if you don't have anything to sacrifice. "Would you like to work at this awesome company and have a new exciting social life?". Of course the answer is yes... until you start to think about what you have to give up to get this.

... but Sacrifices are hard

Every choice has a sacrifice, whether it is something as small as 10 minutes of your life or if it's something as big as leaving all your friends and going to a place where you know nobody. The latter example was my scenario two years ago when I first came to Gibraltar.

Do I want to leave Gibraltar and my friends here? Of course not. Do I want new experiences, a career, and a bunch of new friends? Of course I do! My choice is hard, because the sacrifices are, but with some of my closest friends leaving, the sacrifices are less and the choice is thereby easier.

We will see where I end up, but wherever it is, I'm sure it will be worth it!

Finally, here is a tribute to my good friend Jussi, who I will meet shortly in Dublin.

I finally got a face to face interview!

2011-11-09T23:48:00.001+01:00

It is one thing applying for a few jobs and sitting and waiting for the interview to finally come, but when it actually happens many things suddenly become so clear. Should I start planning for moving to another country? Will the job be as challenging and rewarding as I expect it to be? How would it be to live someplace new?

Back into the gaming/iGaming industry?

The truth is that I do want to get back into the gaming industry, as in "computer/video games", but since my current experience also includes iGaming, that's definitely not off the table.

Two and a half years ago I was not really sure what I wanted to do. I studied Game Design, but was thinking too much about the "big picture" and things around the product. Somehow I have been lead on a road that made me realize that my true passion is about communities, social media and communication in general. We will see where i end up, but I think that as long as I work with people that knows what they are doing and with a company that believes in creativity, I will be very happy.

What about my private projects?

I have currently two major projects that I am working with. Both are concerning blogs and one will hopefully in the future bring profit, while the other is more of an experiment.

I will continue them both, as good as I can. Oh yes. This is IF I get the job. They will not compete at all with any of the jobs I applied to, rather the opposite. They would help promoting whatever I end up doing.

We are currently on the verge of starting up the company officially, but we need to sort out a lot of paper work before everything is ready to go. Competition for what we are doing seems to be quite low, the manpower needed from us not very high and the possibilities seems to be even higher.

This is a picture of the place where I will be going for an interview. Can you guess which town it is?

Google+ Pages trick! Opportunity!

2011-11-07T22:52:00.000+01:00

After a day of drafting Magic with Johan, Håkan, Phil and Fredrik I come home to watch some friends, eat some of my fantastic Spaghetti Bolognese and finally manages to perfect time the release of Google+ Pages.

What would one do at such a moment?

Taking smart names!

One smart, but risky, thing is to take smart names that would benefit you. There is a rumor though that many pages can have the same name, so I can't guarantee that this will work at all. I might come back tomorrow and totally dismiss my own blog post, who knows? :P But if this works, I will not only get fantastic channels of communication, I might also be more interesting to hire, because who ever hires me also get's the channels that I now have reserved to do marketing through.

Always make sure you are well prepared and that you do what you can to get an edge against your competitors.

Job interviews coming up

I do not want to get too much into details, but I have had one interview so far, which I think went pretty well. I am hoping to get a final one soon as well. Other than this one there are a few others that starts to pop up. After waiting a few months, the interest for someone like me seems to have spread.

We will see where I end up, but if everything goes the way I want it, I will end up at a fantastic place with some fantastic people. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Here is the release video of Google+ Pages by the way!

The perfect win-win solution against piracy

2011-11-05T13:55:00.001+01:00

Now and then I always hear this and that about people stealing peoples work/products and others saying that it is so expensive that they don't really have an option. Many game companies has tried to get around this problem by having monthly fees for their online games, others introduce Free-to-Play. In other words, MMO games is doing really fine against piracy.

But what about the other games, movies and music out there? Is there a solution?

The perfect solution is here!

Okay, this is not as concrete as I might have mislead you to believe, but it is a solution even so: Find a good substitute. Everybody wins! Okay, let's discuss this with a few examples.

Music:
- We got Spotify, a tool where you stream music for free, but has to endure some advertisment now and then. It's like a radio where you can choose what songs and in what order you want to listen to them.

Movies:
- There are websites like Voddler, concept similar to Spotify.

Games:
- EMPTY SPACE HERE!

Now it is getting interesting. While solutions are starting to come up in the music and movie industry, we still don't have a _really_ good system for games. What would happen if you release your game for free, but put lots of ads in it instead. For people to get rid of the ads, they need to pay. Simple. It works for the other medias, so why shouldn't it work with Games?

The problem is always that you can edit the core files and remove the ads, if you are skilled in these kinds of things, but when the Onlive games streaming software is released, this threat is easily eliminated.

Even so, you wont lose on having this solution, since the people who downloads your games from various Torrent sites will probably only be convinced to change their way if a solution like this was available. You won't get these guys anyway, so what do you have to lose? What your loyal and paying customers will do doesn't really matter, since you will earn money from the advertisement anyway (possibly you could even profit more from this).

Finally, don't forget that piracy is not only evil. It has helped many games and game companies to reach where they are today. The viral effect.

Five steps on how to promote yourself

2011-11-03T17:51:00.000+01:00

Since I am currently only working with freelance or personal projects I know how important it is to know how to promote yourself as a person. If you really want a job, you cannot send out a CV here and there and hope for luck to come your way. As Two Face once said: "I make my own luck".

Step 1) Figure out how you want to be perceived

What job do you want to work with? Do you want to look like a strict boss or as a laid back co-worked with a creative mind? What do you want people to think when they learn things about you? What would you like your future employer to think about you?

This is something you need to figure out before you do ANYTHING else.

Step 2) Make a list of tools & contacts you can use

Do you have any contacts that can help out in giving you some positive buzz, writing recommendation letters etc? Do you have a Facebook, LinkedIn (!!!), Google+, MySpace and a Blog Account? Most importanty, have you registered your own www.yourname.com domain yet?

Step 3) Make a plan on how to spread positive buzz

Now it is time to make a plan on what you want to put on your sites, your blog and what to put in your CV & Cover letter. Be aware of that now when you are more "official" than before, harmful information such as Politics and such things might be something you have to try to hide. Choose carefully what you put in the web and make sure it fits the person you want your employer to see you as.

Step 4) Make yourself visible

Use all channels you possibly can to expose yourself to the public. The more pages you have info about yourself on, the easier it will be for someone to find you when googleing or surfing around. The best way of making yourself visible is to have a serious blog, with a www.yourname.com URL and using the different Social Media channels to promote it.

Who would notice the smart kid in the back if he never puts his arm up in the air once in a while?

Step 5) Alertness and quick responses

Now when you are up and running. Make sure you keep everything up to date and that you answer your emails and requests quickly. After all, the weird guy Mr. John Smith that keeps trying to add you on Linkedin.com might indeed be your future employer, trying to contact you for an interview.

Every unanswered mail is a possibly missed opportunity. Be out there, all the time! Ironically, being unemployed is actually hard work, if you do it right!

Blogger vs. Wordpress, who would win?

2011-11-02T22:36:00.000+01:00

After discussing blog tools with my friends Johannes Thorén and checking out other nice blogs, like Joakim Nilssons blog about Social Media Management, I decided to do some research to figure out which blog tool that is best for me... and for you.

Three reasons to go for Blogger

Blogger seem to be a more beginner friendly, and actually 100% free, blog tool. It is very simple, user friendly and to a degree you can customize your blog quite a bit. Blogger also offers an easy way for you to earn money on your blog.

Here are the three top reasons why you should choose Blogger:

1. Simplicity. Easy to use, free and it has a very good interface.
2. Everything is free! You don't have to pay anything for any of the tools!
3. Simple Advertising from Google. It is easy to set up a way to earn money.

Three reasons to go for Wordpress

Wordpress is a tool that can be used by new bloggers as well as more advanced. The problem is that the tool itself is more advanced and could thereby confuse some users. The more options and services you want, the more you will have to pay. For $100/year you will get all special features, but will still have to pay separately for special themes.

Here are the top reasons why you would choose Wordpress:

1. Full customization possibilities. If you pay, you can edit/change pretty much anything.
2. If you are a new user, you can easily set up a free blog without much problem.
3. If you are an advanced user, you can still get a kick ass blog without paying anything.

And the winner is?

If you don't wanna get much into detail with your blog. You just want it up and running and don't care for anything fancy, then Blogger is for you. Although if you want to have full control over your blog and don't care to pay a bit extra for it, then go "pro" with Wordpress, my personal favorite.

Comparing the two tools, not caring about the paying aspect, Wordpress beats Blogger by a long shot.

I do feel the irony of me blogging on Blogger still, but a little bird told me that this might change very soon.

Psychology in Design Choices for Games Part 2

2011-11-01T21:10:00.000+01:00

This is the second part of my thoughts on "Psychology in Design Choices for Games" (Read Part 1). Remember how I said in the previous part that many developers tend to use statistics to find out what people like the most? Well, today I will discuss about if going main stream is really a good idea.

Is the Main Stream path good in the long run?

Yes and no. Everything is good in moderate. People need choices, variation - different kind of games! In movies we eventually get tired of the classic "girl is annoyed by hero-to-be-character but learns to love him during the course of the movie and eventually the hero gets the girl" scenario. The same applies to games. You cannot repeat a winning concept so much that you will end up in the "main stream" folder.

There are always indie games, but they rarely got the same financial support as the big titles. What would happen if... Blizzard (!!) decided to do something completely new, not a main stream game at all!? Imagine a the movie "300", where the hero already was married, the wife got raped and the hero actually died in the end - never seeing his wife ever again. Still, a lot of people like this movie. They find it to be something different than most similar movies with a lot of action, but with the classic romance.

People like different. People like surprises. People like riddles, questions, mysteries that you can't figure out from the start!

Main stream is dying, darlings needs to be killed and games needs to be made.

Here is a video of Star Wars: The Old Republic, a game that was originally marketed as a game much different to World of Warcraft and very little about grinding and the classic "tank/healer/dps" shebang. But what does it look like today? Well, let's take a look!

Psychology in Design Choices for Games Part 1

2011-10-31T21:35:00.000+01:00

After talking half the night away with my dear friend Mats Söderholm, Game Design teacher from Sweden, we concluded a lot of very good points concerning the psychology in game design and in particular design choices. This series of blog posts will cover a couple of traps that designers very easily fall into. Have you fallen in any of these traps? I sure have.

What is the "darling" syndrome?

"This game is awesome, because I made it!"; "I can't see any reason why someone would not like this game.". These might be something a game developer could say/think about his/her game.

What I think is good doesn't have to be what other people think is good. People think different. Still, how much can we listen to the customers? Do they really know what they want? Do we really know what is best for them? How do we find the balance between our knowledge and their dreams?

My point here is that it is easy to fall in a trap where your or your players judgement might influence your design choices. Sometimes developers try to convert a classic isometrically perceived game into a first person shooter, because the statistics say that most people like FPS when it comes to action games. At the same time some developers might follow their own dream too much and create something like Spore. You all know how that story went down, no need for me to repeat it for you.

Tomorrow I will talk about "the Main Stream path", to get deeper into this topic.

Let's finish this post off with a game that has worked hard (experiencing both good/bad stuff) with finding the balance I mentioned above, EVE Online (the "I was there" trailer):

Ways of lifting the customers spirit

2011-10-30T13:38:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I decided to have an easy going day with my friends and girlfriend, starting the day with a draft of Magic and ending it with watching the shittiest Marvel movie in history: Captain America, the man who thinks infiltrating an enemy head quarters requires a metal shield painted with the flag of USA. Idiot...

Anyway, that's when I started to think about how movie makers and game developers use the things people care about to lift the spirit once in a while. To get a "let's do this together, for us!" kind of feeling. In movies this might be a man dressed in a country's flag (satisfying that countries population) or in games perhaps a Halloween or Christmas event. Speaking of which, the reason why I decided to take a lazy day was because I might have been too enthusiastic at the Halloween party the day before.

Johan the Priest, Me the Vampyric Wolverine, Phil the Death and Fredrik, being himself.

Developers: Take advantage of every opportunity you get

Every holiday or special occasion is an opportunity to do something fun for your players. It is also a very good opportunity to create buzz and great PR. The "We are celebrating EVERYTHING!" motto is something I embrace a lot. Aprils fools; Halloween; Christmas; The players birthday; The games' birthday... you name it!

There is so much to gain and so little pain.

Here is an old Simon an Lewis Minecraft video I've always loved to watch. Those crazy brits sure know how to create buzz about a game with their weird, but fantastic personalities.

Please spank me if I have been bad.

2011-10-27T16:44:00.000+02:00

Before getting into what the heck the title in this blog post means, I need to express my feelings about Google removing the search engine words statistics feature. This is a quote from Google's announcement about it:

What is the impact of this change for webmasters? Today, a web site accessed through organic search results on http://www.google.com (non-SSL) can see both that the user came from google.com and their search query. (Technically speaking, the user’s browser passes this information via the HTTP referrer field.) However, for organic search results on SSL search, a web site will only know that the user came from google.com.

I might consider moving my blog to Wordpress after this, honestly. Anyway, today I will talk about games that punish you when you have been a bad bad boy/girl.

High Punishment: EVE-Online

The most fun AND the most boring MMO I have every played is EVE-Online. The reason why I have and always will love this game is that it punishes you for your mistake more closely to the real life. This is also sometimes a bad thing. It takes time to build something up, but it can be taken away in a blink of an eye. That could cause momentary motivation loss. This combined with the "playing solo" part can make this MMO so boring that I want to puke. It is a love/hate relationship!

Low Punishment: ANNO 2070

The ANNO games have always been very nice to you. Worst thing that happens is when you go unprepared to war, but otherwise you are pretty much safe and got all the time in the world. The latest ANNO game: ANNO 2070 is soon coming out and it does look very interesting. The multiplayer seems to have become a more central role in this game and you have bigger space for customization.

High Punishment vs. Low Punishment: Different game types for different moods. It equals a game of tension and excitement versus a laid back and relaxing game where you got all the time in the world.

Here is a short, but informative trailer on the new ANNO 2070 game:

The "Leaking" Strategy of Marketing

2011-10-26T02:39:00.000+02:00

It does feel nice when things are starting to roll in my direction. My recent productivity boost has started to pay off. I even got missed by a falling rock and escaped death today. It is amazing what you can do to increase the chance of things come your way. But what are the game companies doing? Is "leakage" the new viral trend?

Is the EA Spouse just a viral marketing strategy?

This one is really hard to crack, at least for me, but the blogger that is called "The EA Spouse" might be an internal trick to create publicity. The thing is that much of what was originally "leaked" through this blog was negative. As they say: "All publicity is good publicity". But it might also be something else. An entrepreneurial spirited blogger, maybe even the real thing! Who knows? That's the thing with leakage, you can never really be sure.

To get to more every day "leakages", which seem to be the new name of "Announcement from company PR Department". Sometimes a song from a game gets "leaked", sometimes the beta, sometimes the demo gets out too early. In some cases you can even see movies filmed by amateurs claimed to be taken in secrecy. Also, have you ever thought about why some companies at live events to closed parties says "No cameras allowed or what we are about to discuss next"? Of course somebody will film it, put it on Youtube and create massive headlines everywhere. That's a good way of getting really cheap advertising. Just be smart.

I am aware that I have a little negative tone here, but in fact, I would like to finish off this blog post by saying that I actually admire this kind of marketing strategies.

Here is some typical leakage webcast on the Sony Playstation 4:

The first and the last successful "Grind-MMO"

2011-10-25T02:25:00.002+02:00

The last few days I have tried out a few MMO:s that I should have, but never earlier have, played. The first one on my list was Age of Conan. The game lacks, at least initially, interesting ways to grind your way up in levels. Most things was just running from A to B without any real purpose. Then today when I tried Warhammer Online I realized that this game had a much better system for grinding. Although for me it is not much different than grinding in World of Warcraft.

Anyway, today I will discuss what I believe is the first big Grind-MMO and what I believe might be the last.

The first was Ultima Online!

Origin Systems masterpiece. This is the first MMO that I ever played and apart from EVE Online this is the MMO that has brought me most joy. It was a very open, free, but also punishing game, just the way I like it. It makes you actually focus and take care of your every moment.

In the future I think many companies need to look back on this game, that might have let people grind in a different way than people do today, but still has a lot of interesting design parts that can be re-used and optimized.

The last is Star Wars: The Old Republic?

This is a long shot, I know, but the time of grinding based MMO:s are dying. After World of Warcraft everything seems just the same to me, just with different graphics. We need something fresh. SWTOR offers good opportunity for role play and makes the game become more like a movie... but it is still based on the very same Grind and PVP game play we are all used to and a little bit tired of.

Let's finish off this blog post with a glimpse of the past. Who remember this old trailer? It is amazing how they tried to make sense of the "multiple servers" issue for the roleplaying perspective on the game.

Game Developers: Are you playing safe or taking leaps?

2011-10-24T00:04:00.000+02:00

In life there is only two things. Doing what feels safe or taking that big leap into the unknown, hoping for grandeur, but risking fiasco. For me this would be the difference of starting up my own company versus starting a career at an already established company.

But what about today's games? Do they stand conflicted between these two choices?

Bioware: "I don't mind leaping once in a while"

Bioware is one of the big companies out there that are willing to sometimes take a leap. Looking at their track record they have failed, but also had huge success. While titles as Baldurs Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect or Dragon Age might have originally been literally a leap into a big pile of money, some titles has instead brought shame to the developers. Their biggest failure in my opinion was Dragon Age 2. This proves that taking a leap to early, might cause you to trip and fall. Sometimes it is just better to play safe.

Blizzard: "I like what I got, I play safe for now".

Blizzard is known for playing extremely safe. They refuse to release a title unless they are sure it will be a success. They spend a lot of money making sure that risks are minimized and profit are maximized. This doesn't mean that they haven't failed before, but it means that they learn by their mistakes and this is one of the key stones of why they are the best out there. Although playing safe is not always the best choice. In the long run you must, as a gaming company, be able to prove that you have the courage and brains to take a leap once in a while. This is what Blizzard yet has to prove.

Let us finish off this blog post with another brilliant cinematic trailer by Blizzard. Let me present to you the new "Black Soul Stone" trailer for Diablo III:

The upcoming Games Race

2011-10-23T01:15:00.000+02:00

As many of you know, there are certain months where new games typically tend to hit the stores. One combo is November-December, specifically BEFORE x-mas. I bet you can figure out why. The other one is before the summer, generally May-June.

Right now we have the pre-xmas games coming up. Battlefield 3, Assassins Creed: Relevations, Anno 2070, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Star Wars: The Old Republic are a few examples.

Games that I fear we will have to wait for until May-June is StarCraft 2: The Heart of the Swarm and Diablo III. Blizzard would have overwhelmed us with their, usually, brilliant marketing by now if they aimed for x-mas.

Who will win the big race?

Is there a race? Of course there is. All of the games listed above are competing about becoming this years x-mas present. This is when all the big companies gather their brilliant minds to create the best marketing plan for their title. Some go for the more experimental viral methods (like Bungie) while others aim for TV commercials and overwhelming banners.

Just before x-mas we have a great moment where we can learn a lot about marketing and PR. Keep an eye out and think for yourself "Could I have done it better?". If your answer is yes, well... either you are wrong or you really got something.

Let's finish off this blog post with an awesome new trailer of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm.

Keep your hands where they belong...

2011-10-22T03:25:00.000+02:00

I just came back, a bit drunk, from my big birthday celebration. Although I am a bit annoyed that someone was not so nice to a dear friend of mine, I am pretty satisfied with my birthday celebration. It was fun, most of my friends where there and I got a nice "Rena Rama Rolf" DVD to hang around my neck.

Thanks everyone for an amazing party. I hope I see you all again soon.

Marketing vs. IRL: The ice breaker

When you are out partying you often come across something one may call "ice breakers". It is the phrase that people use to initiate a conversation with you. Todays ice breaker was: "How are you? What are your plans now?". When you think about it. The ice breaker principle not only applies to parties, but to the way you communicate with your customers in a company.

When communicating to your customers, you need a good ice breaker. Think of it like you are in a club and want to pick up a girl. You don't want to use whatever everyone else is saying. You want to be original, but still not be to "far fetched", so to speak.

"Are you out of premium credits? Maybe I can help!". If you are playing a game, would you not consider learning more after hearing this phrase?

Gadaffi arrested on my birthday

2011-10-20T20:15:00.000+02:00

Well that's funny. Apparently they caught the bastard... on my freekin' birthday. Now, how good birthday present isn't that? ;)

I want to thank you all for the nice birthday wishes. It kept me in a good mood all day, while I was applying to jobs within the gaming industry. Now when Håkan got a job at Google, it seems like it is not impossible to get jobs after all.

It's good that my personal projects are starting to become something more than just ideas. Got two other people onto the project now.

Learning more about Social Media Management...

I have recently started following www.joakimnilsson.com, since he actually seems to be a quite cunning Social Media Specialist. I would recommend anyone interested in this area to check out his blog. It sure taught me one or two things I hadn't thought about before.

Anyway, now I am off to eat some awesome Chicken Tikka Masala at Charlie's Tavern in Ocean Village. See you tomorrow!

(the picture is taken from markdraws.com, excellent artist)

Evaluating my blog

2011-10-19T22:05:00.000+02:00

Just came home from Alex third birthday. Pelle's little boy is growing so fast! Although, he kind of looks the same size as when I first saw him, but kids grow fast and... yeah you get the point.

MOVING ON...

I have decided to evaluate my blog and see if I can get better at keeping myself short (you see how I already failed at that) and try to make my posts easier to read.

Vote on what you want to read!

I have made a survey on the top of this page where you can vote on what you would like me to focus more on. You can vote on more than one thing, so you will no longer struggle between choices.

Anyway, that's it for today. After watching an impressive game play video of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I am now off to try out Age of Conan for a bit. A good way to finish off a productive day of applying to jobs here and there in Europe.

The Dawn of Micro Payment Systems for Games

2011-10-18T02:59:00.000+02:00

While spending much of this day to re-build some of my, yes I know how nerdy it is, Magic: The Gathering decks. After building the first out of three decks I worked with during the day, I started thinking about Magic as a strategically brilliant product. Richard Garfield's idea was around 10 years before it's time if you compare it to how more and more computer games are sold today.

Micro Payment is the Key

Magic: The Gathering is a game where you commonly play with 40-60 cards built from booster packs of 15 randomized cards from a certain theme each.

The game it self is free to play. You may play it as much as you can, as long as you buy the "parts" yourself. Much like many of the current Free to Play games we have today, only that Magic: The Gathering actually required you to actually own some initial parts to be able to take advantage of your free unlimited game time.

This system has worked since the game was released in the 1990's and it is only now that the concept is REALLY starting to show itself in digital form.

Today the monthly payment system is dying out. Welcome to the future and thanks Richard Garfield and Wizards of the Coast for showing us game developers a brilliant way to sell our games.

Oh, yes. The decks I built during the day was: Life gain (BLUE; WHITE; GREEN), Pumped Creatures (WHITE; GREEN) as well as a very odd deck where much of it is based on messing the opponent up with spells and dirty bombs (RED, BLUE, BLACK).

Sugar rush!

2011-10-16T16:30:00.000+02:00

I have been on the Low Carb High Fat diet now for a while, with the exception of doing what the hell I want once or twice during the weekend. Yesterday I made a very... sweet milkshake. Vlada got so annoyed at bed time that she had to say "shut up I want to sleep!" to finally get my corn hole to close. It is amazing how many things you feel you want to philosophize about when you are high on sugar.

Tonight we are doing a Rock Band + milkshakes to experiement our performance with a lot of sugar in our system. Will our performance increase... or cause DISASTER?!

Watching the Schulman Show

Recently I have started watching this Swedish online show where this guy Alex Schulman (who might think he is a bit bigger than he actually is) is inviting a famous person and then laugh about some Youtube-videos or special topics that they find amusing/disgusting. I must say that I'm finally coming around. The show is not that bad.

Although... I must say that he does not do well in front of a camera. In the picture to the right of this text he kind of looks like he had a rough night with Hulk Hogan and lived to tell the tale.

Top 5 every day annoyances

2011-10-14T02:20:00.000+02:00

After spending a lot of time in entrepreneur spirited meetings I had the misfortune of being annoyed every single minute of the transportation route to and from the places in town where we had the meetings. Therefore I am now forced to make a top 5 of annoying every day things that recently have... annoyed me.

The top 5

*EDIT*
HONORARY STAR LEVEL. F*CKING FIRE ALARM GOING OFF EVERY 15 MINUTES! This has been the case since I moved to Gibraltar. Most buildings here seem to have a little troll dry humping the fire alarm button once in a while. This would never happen in Sweden. It's not that it's just annoying, but also dangerous. Imagine if a real fire would start some day...
*/EDIT*

1. People on the street walking in a "wall formation", looking backwards - noticing that I am trying to squeeze through - and just keeps walking as if nothing happened. WHAT THE FUCK!?

2. People in Morrisons decide to have "meetings" in the middle of the way, blockading all "traffic" what so ever and don't even get the point when there is suddenly a big que of impatient and annoyed people behind them. FUCK OFF YOU RETARDS!

3. People on the street that is about to cross past you and can't decide on which side they should pass you. This is so simple: The standard is to walk on the LEFT side of someone. Cyclists does the opposite.

4. The TV channels have synchronized advertisement. I mean... COME ON!

5. Stores being closed during the weekend. "Let's close ALL of the stores on the weekdays just when people are off work and let's make sure that they wont get a chance during the weekends either. We are not interested at all in making money in our company."

What I have learnt during my time in Gibraltar is that the average IQ is somewhat a hell of a lot lower than in Sweden. No offense if you don't consider yourself to be doing anything of the things above, but if you feel that this describes you pretty well, then I pity you.

Star Wars: The Old Republic... what to play?

2011-10-12T22:04:00.000+02:00

As most of you guys know, Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) is being released on 20th of December (or so it has been said) and expectations are sky high. My expectations has sunken quiet a bit since the first announcement though. The more I learn, the more disappointed I get.

So... what will I play?

Jedi Knight versus Smuggler

My initial thought has always been smuggler, but after learnt a lot about it, it is only still interesting in a story/RPG point of view. The game play looks pretty lame and the fact that a smuggler CAN in fact beat a Sith Lord in a combat at all is just unrealistic to me. A force wielder should kick a Smugglers ass any day. But Game Balance sometimes demands things like this to happen... understandably but unfortunately.

Since my guild is playing the light side of the force, I will probably go for Jedi Knight. I mean, why play a Star Wars game and not be a "lightsaber class"? ;)

I was thinking about the consular, but it seems like they are pretty much a mage/priest in gameplay perspective, I am not really interested. I was hoping that they would be a more powerful version of the Jedi Knight, but with slower power regeneration and faster exhaustion, to balance things up. But my idea of a consular might be totally wrong...

Todays big lol: Sheldon Cooper does it again!

Bazinga!

Mass Effect 3 + Multiplayer = True

2011-10-11T03:00:00.001+02:00

It seems like what we have hoped for is going to happen, actually. Is it my dream coming true? Co-op in a story driven Bioware game? Could it be one of the disappointing "deathmatch" kind of multiplayer that awaits us?

Co-Op is the future

I think that the brain dead Death Match multiplayer type is dying out. The world needs multiplayer with a purpose. A goal to reach, a story to follow. This is the future. Many games has already embrace this. Just look at Gears of War or Army of Two.

Let's face it. We have been waiting for quite a while now for multiplayer to be included in a story driven game like Mass Effect. Bioware better be very careful to not disappoint the fans they have hyped for some time now.

The ending better be good!

Mass Effect has been a game that I have been very critical against and for a start I refused to play it. Once watching it at a friends place, I was convinced to give it a try.

To my surprise it was one of the best Bioware Games ever made (except from my favorite: Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark). Mass Effect 2 was even better and I can't imagine the third and last one being any worse... but, who knows? Dragon Age 2 was the biggest disappointment in Biowares history, imo. So... well, we just have to wait and see!

A shift of generation

2011-10-09T17:28:00.001+02:00

Can you really define when a new generation starts and an old one dies out? Is it not as hard as defining what is REALLY "normal"? Anyway, while reading the news on the net I figured that right now must be some kind of generation change.

Charlie Sheen's out, Ashton Kutcher's in!

One old pathetic pathetic party boy is going away, while another one is entering the stage. Of course I am talking about the whole "Two and a Half Men" circus. Not only has the main character reflected the life of the actor, but it was succeeded still doing so after a shift of cast.

Is not Ashton Kutcher starting to look more and more like a young Charlie Sheen? Let's go back to this blog post in 30 years and see how right I was.

Steve Jobs is out, "Google Guys" is in!

Even though Jobs still has a few surprises prepared for the next couple of years, it has been interesting to see how the fresher brains Sergey Brin and Larry Page has gradually stolen the spotlight of good ol' Jobs. You cannot compare them as competitors, but rather as geniuses of their time. Steve Jobs had his boom long ago and managed to keep the ball rolling to this day, but in my opinion, the greatest surprises has already been revealed. The rest is pretty much "good marketing", rather than amazing inventions. I mean, Ipad 2, Iphone 5... simply enhanced versions of the same thing, carefully planned to make more money.

The Google Guys on the other hand have still some way to go before they can properly conquer the world like Steve Jobs once did. They may have a lot, true, but I think their greatest achievment is still waiting to be revealed. Anyone can make a search engine, good or bad, or an online spreadsheet, or a good email service... even a social network! If you look at it, most things they have done is copies of other peoples ideas. Usually with smarter marketing, better solutions, but copies still.

I believe in Google, and their brightest day is still to be had. You go guys!

The average guy at a club

2011-10-08T02:13:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone! Just came home from a night out in Gibraltar... a bit drunk, but not too much. Tonight I have analyzed the different kind of guys that goes to clubs and what their strategies are. Brace yourselves...

Five common types of guys

1. The hopeful hunter: This guy goes from one girl to another and forces himself upon her (putting his arm around her and being kind of honest about what his intentions are).

2. The charming stalker: This guy sticks around wherever the girls goes. Sooner or later, he is there. Trying to make a small chat or whatever. Trying his best to look cool, talk about something "interesting" or asking the right questions. Charm is his weapon, although he might not be a skilled user of it. One thing is certain though, he wont give up unless the girl hocks up with someone else or tells him directly "NO!"... and maybe not even then.

3. The dancer: This one is quite common. He dances you up and gradually gets closer and closer until it becomes obvious that the girl is on the same track or is not interested.

4. The generous one: This guy buys the girl drinks to keep her interested, happy and in the end drunk enough to MAYBE to along with his plan. This plan seem to work amazingly well with people in Gib. Not that I ever tried... I'm to cheap. :D

5. The pathetic one: This one tries to convince the girl to become interested in him, even though he already know he lost the race. He can even say "Why not?", "Please!?", "Come one!" or "Just this one!"

Who was I before and who am I now?

I have always been more of the guy that swoops in and tries to win over the chicks with my witty comments and irresistible charm. So far it has worked fine, so I'm quite happy about my strategy. Although it does get tricky when the girl is partly interested, but either is playing hard to get or is not really convinced yet. Then you don't know if you should stop trying or hang in there with the risk of looking too desperate or "easy to get" (which I'm not. I'm fuckin' HARD to get, capish?!). Thankfully I wont need to worry about this anymore. :)

Right now I'm not one of these types, I'm rather the "hang-around-being-social-until-I-get-too-tired-and-only-can-think-of-my-bed" guy. Girls are off my radar, since I'm into guys now... not. :D

Btw. The people on the pictures have nothing to do with the text next to them. I just picked them randomly.

Bethesda versus Mojang

2011-10-07T14:58:00.001+02:00

The childish game is still being played. Who the good guys here is obviously Mojang, but really... was this the best move of Bethesda? This feud will probably hurt the company way more than actually letting Mojang use the name Scrolls.

Another sign of inexperience from Bethesda's part. Until this came up I actually didn't think much bad of the company, other than that they made my favorite game into a FPS (Fallout). This is something I can forgive them for. I see the logic in their decision now.

The word "Scrolls" may never be used!

Yes, it is true. Bethesda claims that because they have the Elder Scrolls brand, no company can use the word "Scrolls" in their product. If this logic is to be sustained in all cases, then we will, for example, not see any games with the following in their titles:

- "Age of"
- "World of"
- "Life"
- "Portal"

And so on. You get the picture.

GROW UP BETHESDA!

To do the one or the other... or to do them all?

2011-10-06T23:31:00.000+02:00

Finally things are starting to come together. I got some freelance stuff going on. I got a really cool idea about a company and I am expanding my range of countries in which to apply for work in.

My plan from now to December

The plan is simple. Learning how to be less nice to people who don't deserve it. Actions must have consequences. Freelance enough to stay alive. Finalize my idea and put it in to motion. Last but not least: Make a bigger effort in finding a new primary job.

Todays laugh:

I guess you all remember Chandler, from Friends, living in a box:

Statistics day!

2011-10-04T02:40:00.000+02:00

I decided to review my blog statistics. Since I haven't really done much marketing for it (at least that I know of), it has worked pretty well for at least people who Google "Gibraltar" or "Full Tilt Poker" to find my blog... or the little bit more interesting search word people use to find my blog:

Statistics for search words used yesterday...

High Activity equals Quality Traffic?

Actually, the more you blog, the more traffic you get... but is spamming blog posts really attracting quality readers or not? I think not.

You have a higher chance of getting new readers from Google or similar when creating a lot of searchable content. The risk is though that you bore or exhaust your existing readers and will end up with having mostly new non-dedicated readers instead of loyal revisiting readers, which is much more valuable (especially in terms of Viral Marketing).

Here is my overall statistics, starting with the start of my blog (when I was going down for the interview with PokerStrategy.com). Guess which peak is about me getting the job and which one is about me being made redundant. ;)

Last weeks interesting posts:

Argh... why is that top post still so damn efficient? I mean, the post it self is NOT THAT INTERESTING! Probably mean I got a bunch of low quality readers. Damn it.

Late night activities...

2011-10-03T02:11:00.000+02:00

Is it only I... that have problems at night, I mean, when I am suppose to go to bed? Uncontrollable urges and desires to do something... else than sleeping?

High brain activity, low self control.

You PERVERT!

If you thought I was talking about something else than working on some new ideas or playing some interesting computer games, you thought wrong.

Anyway, I am still serious about my questions. How come I always become so reluctant to go to sleep, when I really don't NEED to go up early anyway? Why do people become more creative at night than during the day? Should a work day be from 6pm to 3am? That's at least when I am most effective... although I must admit that the next morning I spot one or two spelling mistakes when reviewing my text... sooo... I have no idea where I am going with this tbh.

Starting up my own company?

I am seriously thinking about it. I got an idea, I got a website under construction (going amazingly fast actually!) and some people possibly interested in putting in some money in the idea.

Should I start my own thing... or should I wait for another job working for someone else?

Good and bad stuff about Gibraltar

2011-10-01T14:49:00.001+02:00

Now when it is getting closer to "should I stay or should I go", I started thinking about Gibraltar and why I would want to stay... or go.

Here is my top 5 of the good and bad things about Gibraltar:

Top 5 good things with Gibraltar

Hardly any wasps
The long summers
The work opportunities
The party life
The people

Top 5 bad stuff about Gibraltar

A social bubble. Same people, same parties, same everything
Small benefits when starting a family
A lot of the local companies/people have no idea what they are doing (like Find a Property)
Expensive apartments
Stupid tourists

The new Syndicate Trailer

2011-09-30T03:59:00.000+02:00

After banging my head to a wall a-la- Dr. Cox from Scrubs, because some people can be so frustrating when they don't understand...

... Oh, where was I. Oh yes. I just watched the Syndicate Trailer (the 2011 edition of course from Starbreeze Studios).

One word: Awesome.

Although I was quite skeptic about it being a FPS, I now kind of like it... in a "Mass Effect" kind of way.

Syndicate vs. Fallout 3

Just like Fallout 3, Syndicate was a RPG game taken from a third person perspective and put into first person. Unlike Fallout 3, the new Syndicate might be less of a mockery.

Until I have played it I can't say for sure, but I have a better feeling about this one than I had about Fallout 3: a game that never should have been an FPS. Syndicate is harder to retain as a third person game and with the right people behind it, it might actually still be "Syndicate" all the way through.

Enjoy...

Top three laughs

2011-09-29T03:29:00.000+02:00

Today's one of those days where I just happen to find funny old clips by mistake, or see a favorite scene in a sitcom I like. Well, here is a top 3 of funny characters that made me ROFLMAO today:

Sheldon Cooper from BBT

This is my favorite clip ever. Sheldon gets a very much appreciated Christmas present from Penny. His reaction in the end is priceless <3.

Alan from the Hang Over

Just saw both of the movies tonight, but this clip was probably one of my favorites, except from when he peed in Mike Tyson's pool, lol.

JD from Scrubs

Saw this one like 15 minutes ago. One of the funny songs they've done, but it's ridiculously funny.

A trip to Ronda and it's amazing views...

2011-09-26T02:44:00.000+02:00

I didn't think much of Ronda when I heard people talk about it. I thought it just had a couple of old cool houses and stuff. No one really got into details about the views. Amazing. One of the most beautiful places I have seen since I moved to Gibraltar.

I could live here

Honestly, this is a town I could picture myself living in. Watch the pictures below and you will see why. Although I doubt it will happen anytime soon, since I kind of have to go where the jobs are. I have started to look outside of Gibraltar now. Applied in Sweden and another place. If the companies here doesn't go to the next step of their recruitment, I will soon have to consider even wider options. I do want to stay here a bit longer if I can.

Even the Pizza was nice...

Why the FUCK is this blog post so interesting?

2011-09-22T00:26:00.007+02:00

Ok, enough!

I'm getting really pissed off that I can't figure out why THIS blog post has gotten so many views. Still, this month, it is my highest ranked blog post and I posted it like a YEAR AGO! It is not really THAT interesting. It is as a matter of fact my number one ranked blog post EVER.

I'm guessing it is unintentional smart SEO. I guess most surfers or beach guys are accidentally getting into this post when they are googling "wake board" or whatever.

SOE test: Wake Board, Knee Board, Beach, Water, Buy, Sell

Let's see if this post manages to get a lot of hits. Let's, for the sake of it, attach a few pointless pictures as well...

Looking for jobs through an agency or not?

2011-09-21T00:13:00.000+02:00

I have recently started to doubt the profit of looking for jobs through an agency. I mean, it will be much more expensive for a company to hire me through an agency than if I applied by myself.

Good parts

+ They help me find vacancies.
+ They handle salary negotiation for me.
+ They can push for a quicker response without me getting shit for it.
+ They are very nice and good at spreading buzz about me.

Bad parts

- It will cost more for the company to hire me.
- Sometimes the agency's personnel is incompetent and might ruin your chances.
- They put forward a lot of people and of course always says good things about them, which makes them lose credibility. I mean, it's their job to get their candidates hired. They will say anything to make that happen.

Summary

I think that if you already have a good contact net and know a lot of companies, try to contact them yourself instead of using an agency. If you are fairly bad at finding jobs or negotiate a salary for instance, you might benefit from using an agency.

The choice is yours!

Game Design: The most natural level-up system!

2011-09-19T19:10:00.000+02:00

I was thinking, while sitting in the bathroom (isn't it amazing how bright you get sometimes, like when you are suppose to sleep or do... something else?) about how game developers deal with their leveling systems. I wonder if they are thinking about the same aspects that I am...

To make things simple, I'll just explain the key levels...

How you level up as a human being

Level 0: You are born. You got no skills other than being able to exist (eat, cry, sleep, shit etc.).

Level 1: You are experienced enough to try out your first few skills: Crawling and Grabbing.

Level 2: You are advancing in your crawling skill and can now walk around, although in a limited area. You are also practicing more advanced communication.

Level 3: You have mastered the skill of movement and advanced communication and for this you are granted more privileges and trust from your masters.

Level 5: You are now ready for a training program in order to develop your more advanced skills. You now measure the results in attributes (Mind and Body).

Level 8: Your Mind and Body attributes are now high enough to grant you freedom (to a certain limit) to go on your first adventures, together with a fitting party of companions of course.

Level 13: You have now earned the privileges of managing your own free time. The first chains are broken from your masters and you might even get your first paid job, by securing a low level humans safety and well being for an evening or so. You are also introduced to another gender and all what comes with it. Although, you also learn of rules and ethics in this area.

Level 16: You have much greater freedom and are even allowed to use a vehicle for transportation. You also now have a private life that your masters will respect, to a certain degree. Partnership with the other gender is now allowed. You are also introduced to more advanced jobs/adventures, but expectations in your ongoing training program is also getting higher.

Level 18: You are now 100% free from your masters and can decide your future as you see fit. Congratulations, you have finished the main campaign of your life. You can still level up, but how you do it and what privileges you earn is totally up to you.

Do you agree/disagree?

Samsung Galaxy S2 + Job interview = Win!

2011-09-18T11:37:00.000+02:00

The mist of confusion and frustration is starting to dissipate. Things are starting to become more clear for me. I have looked into my options, searched my soul and found something I think I was looking for. To cut the bull crap, I bought a new phone... and went to a job interview.

I am half thinking about posting a funny video from friday night, when we were playing drinking games... let's see through the writing of this blog post if I do it or not :P

Samsung Galaxy S2

Amazing phone. I bought a really nice cover for it as well, which I am so incredibly satisfied with. Also, my Phone to HDMI cable just arrived. Means I should be able to stream videos from the web to my TV. Win.

My only problem is getting Spotify to work on it. I upgraded from Spotify Unlimited to Premium, to see if that will let me install it (it worked on my HTC!).

The job interview

I cannot tell you too much, since nothing is final yet and as I'm still not 100% sure if the things we discussed at the interview are for public ears or not, and I don't wanna ruin my chances by blogging something stupid ;)

Long story short: It went quite well, but the final decision is now resting at my possible future employer. Keep your fingers (and toes, as well as your pets paws) crossed for me!

And... no, I'm not posting the video.

How to trick you!

2011-09-15T20:08:00.000+02:00

Most of you have heard of the iPhone4, the HTC Sensation or the Samsung Galaxy S2. All awesome smart phones, right? Isn't it amazing how they can create new phones so fast with so many new cool features?

It's not.

Look, that brick looks prettier than mine, I want it!

The iPhone, for instance, was not created to its full potential. It was created as a nice smart phone, but without any of the REALLY fancy things. This way, Apple could introduce their already prepared special feature in the brand new iPhone 2 (which they release to the market once the original iPhone has dropped too much in price).

Actually, the real difference between a smart phone and its predecessor model is very little. It has a new look, a new new features, but the differences are ACTUALLY so small that you are very gently being tricked into buying almost the same phone for a much more expensive price than the current market value of the original unit.

Mobile Phone manufacturers knows how to market their products, which is why these companies impress me quite a bit. They know how to keep the value up to the top, without really doing much else than changing the name, the look and a few minor details. Remember that much of your smart phone is actually software, which updates for free on your current phone. Old phones not "being compatible" with the latest version is simply a trick to get you to buy the newer model.

Ca'ching! $$$$ - Good job!

Admittedly, I fall more many of these things as well, but I'm trying to get better ;)

Top 5 ways to gain social respect

2011-09-12T21:51:00.002+02:00

I have recently been thinking about the different ways people act in order to feel important, or to feel that they can gain respect from people around them. Here is my top 5 of the most common ways that people do this. 1 is obviously the one I am most okay with, while 5 is the one that attracts me the least.

Before we start judging others, let's judge myself! Probably 1, 3 and 2, in that order. I'm always trying to be a good friend, but I really like to show off and sometimes I might do something crazy, just to give someone else a good laugh. :)

1) The Friend

This is the strategy I admire the most. In order to gain a high social status, this guy works hard at being a good friend, doing favors, without asking anything in return.

He or she of course likes to make people aware of how good friend he or she is, but in the end people see this person as a really nice guy that they could trust.

2) The Crazy Person

Who doesn't love the crazy guy who jumps over the fence and steals a chicken, or says inappropriate things to his teacher in front of the class, for a good laugh. This person risks himself in order to gain respect.

People would probably see this person as a funny guy that you could have a laugh about, but maybe not invite to your wedding.

3) The Specialist

This person is someone that always keeps pointing out that every movie sucks, except if it is a movie you obviously haven't heard of and cannot judge yourself, or that he/she is always right and know "a little bit" more than you about a subject. If he or she (gah, let's just say "he" from now on, ok?) might realize that he is the less wiser kid, he will Google your brains out until he can show you ONCE AND FOR ALL that he knows everything.

You can tolerate him, at a certain degree. I, myself, would not be able to hang around with this type of person for more than maybe a week without exploding of frustration, but many people see this person as a smart guy, but very annoying and would consider choosing other people as friends/girl or boyfriends. No one wants to argue about every single topic just to know that you have to forfeit your opinion in order to avoid world war 3.

Yes, this type annoys me, so it deserved some more text than the other types. :P

4) The Rich Guy

The second worst is the guy who think he can buy anything or anyone. "Money is power, money is respect!". This person will spend more than he or she can just to look like the cool rich guy who can get what you never could.

The only people that really likes (or fake likes), is the ones that are trying to parasite of this persons wealthy life style. Misery.

5) The Bully

The topic says it all, doesn't it? Well, if you don't have brains, you have to use your fists right? Although I have to disagree with myself there, since some bully's actually use their wits to f*ck people over. All this mental or physical violence just so that people would respect you out of fear. Yay, great way to go. Road to happiness! Yeah!.. not.

EDIT: Maybe there is another one that should be mentioned. The "Talent". I'm not 100% sure about this one, but some people do get a lot of respect simply because they are good at something, really, without bragging around about it (like the specialist would do).

Failing on National Day

2011-09-11T23:54:00.001+02:00

Many people failed and triumphed yesterday, on the National Day of Gibraltar 2011. Håkan got home at 6 in the morning and has been a zombie all day. No clever comments... no nothing! Amazing. One person I know, but for obvious reasons wont mention the name of, had a little drunk adventure at his workplace. Too bad I didn't get to see it, lol.

I had a really great time yesterday. First I went bare feet in search of Rebecca, the keeper of my shoes AND my new Samsung Galaxy S2 (!!!). After that we visited Craig at the Cannon Bar, totally took over the place. Then we moved on to Gibraltar Arms to receive our glorious National Day Hat (together with a shot each). The next stop was the Star Bar, where they gave us a diamond lighter when we ordered our drinks. The owner first refused to let us in... since he recognized Rebecca. The last stop of the first part of the party crusade was Lord Nelsons, to recieve our Corona T-shirts. Ironically, they didn't have Corona at the bar.

After checking out All's Wells and eating nachos at the Casino, we went home to recover. Later in the evening we enjoyed the sunbeds at the local pool area watching some amazing fireworks. Managed to capture some on my new phone!

Let's capture the finalé... fail!

As I said: Never pass out at my place!

2011-09-07T16:40:00.002+02:00

... or fall asleep for that matter. You might get brutally abused.

What the fuck am I talking about? Well, find out here!

See you soon Qixiang!

Qixiang, my flat mate and friend, is going back to Argentina now for a while, on a quest to finally become Argentinian. I will miss my little boy, but he will soon be back cooking noodles and chicken wings for me!

88!

~~Fingers crossed for~~ RIP Stefan Liv

It seems like the KHL Ice Hockey team Lokomotiv just crashed now somewhere in Russia. It is not clear yet if the Swedish goal keeper Stefan Liv was on the flight or not. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he was not on-board, and if he was, that he in that case is one of the two survivors...

UPDATE: It seems like Stefan Liv, an amazing goal keeper, was one of the people who died. Rest in Peace.

- Read more here! (swedish!)

A list of the victims: http://translate.google.se/translate?hl=sv&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.izvestia.ru%2Fnews%2F499821

I've got an interview!

2011-09-04T14:11:00.000+02:00

Finally some things are starting to happen. On Saturday I am going for an interview for a position where I would work with marketing and PR (viral marketing!!!!) for a limited time based project. It feels very exciting and it is definitely something I could pull off. Although it would feel good to have a couple of options.

Companies recruit in the autumn...

The thing is that most companies make public quite early what they need, but don't start the recruitment process until much later. For the company, this is a brilliant strategy. You get lots of choices and nothing is rushed. For the person who is looking for a job and currently is unemployed, this is a pain. It is how it works, but still, a pain.

I am estimating some feedback during September-October, but if it takes longer I am going to consider moving on maybe to another country. I can't wait forever. There is opportunities elsewhere as well.

Is having a choice good or bad?

But what happens if/when I get some options? Let's say more than one company is interested in hiring me? Well this is a luxury problem that is very unlikely to happen... but I have been in this position before. Fortunately I did the right choice back then, but will I make the right choice this time?

One possibility is that I get to choose between one job which is much like a "gamble", while the other one is a safe shot. Should one gamble with jobs or go safe? Honestly I have no idea. Going safe always feels good, but taking a chance might be a awesome shortcut to a very successful career.

Blogging!..?

2011-08-30T23:28:00.000+02:00

Why blog? Why do I bother? Well, the way I see it - why not!?

I was sitting around just now, thinking about something to blog about, and started to think about WHY people blog; why I blog. Is it a need of attention? Is it self-therapy? Well, I think it's a bit of each to be honest.

A public diary

I think of blogs as diaries of a persons thoughts and life. When I die, there is something left. Who remembers someone which they have no data of? Most probably very few people will ever find my blog in a 100 years or so, but what if? It doesn't do me any good, 'cause I will be dead, but in case I get reborn or something, I'll already be famous!.. or not.

Experimenting...

I also see blogging as an opportunity to try things out. See what catches peoples eyes (sex & drama), what doesn't (everything else) and how people react to what I write. Sometimes I write something really strange - or provoking - just to see how people will react to it.

My dear test subjects, I love you all (except Andreas Exler and Aurelien because they were mean to me on Facebook, buhu!).

So, what is going on?

2011-08-26T13:37:00.000+02:00

Okay, it has been a lot of weird posts lately, but nothing new about what's REALLY going on. Do I have a job yet? What do I do every day? Any big things happening in my life? Well, there's some stuff I can let you know!

No job yet, but I got a plan...

I am still waiting for feedback for the jobs I have applied for, so nothing new there, but what is new is that I got a backup plan. I got a quite interesting business idea, which I will be working on "just in case" I get to impatient waiting for the "dream job". If I can't get it, I will create it myself.

Of course I cannot tell you about my business idea, but I am quite happy to have come up with something interesting that I would like to develop further. Lot's of work in front of me though... but can't wait to start!

Moving together :)

Finally it has come to the time when a two people in a relationship decides to take the relationship to the next level. This is it. Quite soon me and Vlada will be moving in together. We signed a new version of the contract two days ago and we will start packing her stuff up from the old place in a bit.

If I'm not alive for my next birthday, we have probably killed each other. :P

Top 3 types of people that annoy me

2011-08-24T14:47:00.000+02:00

Although people say I am too patient or too nice, there are actually a few things that really annoy me. I might not always show it, but god knows I'm shopping heads off in my mind sometimes. Well anyway, here is the top 3 of the kinds of people that annoy me the most. Enjoy!

1. Sadistic people

People that enjoy to fuck people over. To make lives worse just for their own amusement. I mean, WHAT THE FUCK? Fortunately I don't have much experience with this type, but I still see them around and I still hate them so much I would like to put them in a cage and poke them with a stick.

2. Arrogant people

People that constantly spells your name wrong, claims every fault is yours and treating you like shit in order for themselves to feel better (and because they can't imagine that THEY could ever do anything wrong). This is the kind of people that annoy me the most. I hope all of you arrogant people get herpes or something.

3. Narrow-minded people

This is probably the most common people type in the world, competing of course with the arrogant bastards, which the world has plenty of. Although many narrow-minded people are nice and ordinary people, not meaning any harm to no one, they still annoy me SOO much. To not be able to see the whole picture. To not be able to see other perspectives, to... It's just hopeless.

So ladies and gentlemen, what's your top 3? :)

Too believe is to succeed!

2011-08-22T01:54:00.000+02:00

To make things clear: I AM NOT CRITICIZING ANYONE IN PARTICULAR! Sometimes people get the idea that I am targeting someone in particular. To save you some frustration: I'm not. I just got something in my head and needed to write it somewhere (like here, in my blog).

Anyway... I think it is important to believe in one self. Have a good self confidence. Know what your strengths are, but more importantly: Know what your weaknesses are. No one is without them.

Don't go too far - It annoys people

If you let your ego take over and just become an annoyance to people around you... it is not really a good quality anymore. The strength is turned into a weakness. Believe in yourself, but believe not only in your strengths, but also your weaknesses. If someone says you are pissing people of by, for example, being a Mr. Know-it-all... you should listen to this person. That's the signal of when you have gone too far.

And yes, I know that I also cross this line sometimes. Sorry about that!

Being right is not always right. Pick your fights, be open to "being wrong". See the advantages of being wrong sometimes. You get more respect, you wont scare people away and you show that everything is not just about "you".

Be open to criticism - Adjust!

Listen to what the people you care about tells you. Don't listen to jerks that might just be jealous or just have personal issues which manifests itself in them being assholes for no good reason. Waste of time and energy IMO. But when you friends give you criticism, that's when you get a really good opportunity to improve.

It sucks to hear something bad about yourself (that you might be desperately trying to hide, even from yourself), but fucking believe me when I tell you that you should listen to it. You don't need to agree or do whatever this person says, but there is always a reason behind the criticism you receive, even if the person got it all wrong. I see it as a great opportunity to learn something.

...

Hmm, it's funny how pretentious this blog post turned out to feel like. Irony? =P

Never... ever... pass out at my place

2011-08-20T16:02:00.001+02:00

First of all I would like to apologize to my dear friend Robert and offer him the possibility of screaming at me until I remove the pictures from this blog post. Sorry I didn't ask before I posted, but it would ruin the fifth element (the element of surprise of course!).

A tribute to Robert Olsén

Back in university, first year. Roberts birthday actually! After some drinks and too much fun (can it be too much of that?), Robert slumbered into a deep sleep (I mean it, DEEP!) in my room. Big mistake, my friend.

And yes, somebody bleached my hair - and yes, I know how gay I look. :D

I did the movie in like 5 mins, so feel free to whine about the quality :P

Being interviewed at the pool

2011-08-16T00:27:00.000+02:00

Note to self: 14 43. This is how I should contact my possible future employer, it's all I know about him. Maybe he is a gangster, maybe a savior... or just the average Joe. I have no idea.

iGaming, once more?

I've always loved the concept, so I would definitely be working with something that interests me. The pay was decent as well, for a part time job. Almost my old salary, but only working par time... hmm. I like it.

Oh yes, he wants someone to create a marketing plan and execute it basically. That would be me! It also seems like this is located in Gibraltar. Profit!

Do I want the job?

I am not sure yet, since I don't really know all the details yet. I am also quite excited about the Social Media Manager position at a growing company nearby. I just found out that one of my friends (and neighbor) recently got a job there. Also they work with computer games... well you know how I feel about that ;)

So, at the moment I feel myself being in the situation where you feel that "soon I might have a very hard choice to make". Soon, or rather "maybe". It depends on many things really. If I wont even get an interview then the choice is rather easy.

Why is life not like a game?

2011-08-13T23:55:00.001+02:00

Sometimes, I think about the benefits of a game in contrast to real life. What if you could just "load" whenever you do something wrong, or something embarrassing happens. What if I had magical powers, or had an cyber arm that allowed me to do all sorts of "cool boy dream" things.

If I got to choose a game feature IRL...

... then I would choose to be able to load earlier points in life whenever I wanted, or when I was "fragged" (nerd word for "killed"). Oh yes. IRL is how we nerds shorten "In Real Life".

Anyway. By being able to load earlier points in life, you could try different paths, avoid embarrassing situations or be able to stop painful things to happen... like a brother passing away. RIP.

But... if one could do this, would it make one happier? It might even be a ticket to the crazy train, if you know what I mean.

Living the dream, as a hobby!

Well, everyone knows you cant have magical powers (or... can you?!), load earlier points in life or other kinds of unnatural things. Actually I'm kind of happy with having life as it is. Actions, consequences, loss... win! Everything is so much more worth it when you achieve it "in real life" than in a fake reality where you easily could get whatever you want with no effort.

The good thing is that you can still have a taste of these virtual worlds... but as a hobby! Never let your fantasy die. Don't be afraid of living out your dreams and fantasies in other places than in the real world. But what is important is to remember what is real and what is most important in life. Knowing what is the hobby and what is the "life".

I found my father in a cave!

2011-08-11T23:29:00.000+02:00

I've always taken him for some kind of cave man. Now, I got the opportunity to finally watch his cave-climbing skills in action... down in Gibraltar.

Yes, that's right. He has actually been on an AIRPLANE. It has been around 30-40 years since he last flew. I have to tell you, it is not easy being afraid of flying and having me as a son. Bad combination.

From love to hate

In the last week of July I went to Sweden for my cousin Karin's wedding. Was awesome. Was quite nice to see her without all that evil makeup of hers, even though she looks kind of "The Matrix - Evil Edition" ;)

The very day after the wedding, which I got very drunk at and stole a bottle of wine which me and my other cousin devoured in the car on the way back home... ANYWAY! The day after the wedding I hurled my dad onto a plane to Spain (tihi, I just realized that it rhymes), together with my mom and myself of course.

Epic success! My father turned from a scared old man to a curious little boy, having his face pretty much glued to the airplane window the whole flight.

Cavemen, at heart

I was a little bit worried about taking my old man down Lower St. Michael's Cave. My brother, yeah that's fine, but my dad! What if he fell! I only have one dad! I got two brothers! I'm sure I could spare one... or could I?

Anyway. The second cave adventure, for me, was almost as fun as the first one. This one was a little bit more eventful though. We had a tripping Sherry, a sympathy-"fall into the water, just because Sherry did it"-brother and a very... very scared Jon Smith. He barely said a word the entire journey, even when his wife-to-be was mocking him, calling him a monkey and several other things.

I know what you are thinking, but what can you do, she is from Sardinia... ;)

Anyway, here are some pictures that my parents took of the whole Gibraltar adventure! Enjoy!

The London Riot of Facepalm...

2011-08-09T19:41:00.000+02:00

I previously posted a picture of Homer face-palming himself. Now when reading up on the London riot I feel the urge to use it again.

Okay, an innocent (as far as I know) person got killed. It is okay to feel anger, I would and I do! It is really awful that it happened and most probably it was wrong by the police to shoot this person.

RIP, David Akinsanya.

BUT THAT DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO ACT LIKE PRIMITIVE NEANDERTHALS!

I mean, wtf?! It really shows how intelligent people are when this kinds of things starts to happen.

"Oh, look! Let's burn that womans shop! It was probably her fault as well that this guy, that I don't know, got killed!". "What's that? An innocent guy walking down the street? Another chance to bring justice! Let's assault him and then steal some of his stuff! Revenge is sweet! Yahay!"

Most people would agree if I said that the Neanderthals died out many thousands of years ago. But now I am starting to wonder...

Keeping my fingers crossed...

2011-08-09T02:59:00.000+02:00

My CV has now been sent in to a company here in Gib, looking for a Social Media Manager ASAP. I looked through the requirements... PEANUTS! This might be THE job. I just hope I get it.

... calming down...

I think everyone knows that when I'm excited about something, like a good job that I like, there are few ways to stop me... I mean, Fredrik use to tease me because I get excited so easily about tasty food or really weird things.

... god, I really need to calm down.

5 minutes from work

The company is very close to where I live, it is involved in turn-key white label projects, actually with people I might know. It is good pay as well, even though that is not the main priority. Although getting good salary is always good. It is kind of a measure of where you are in a career - how good you are - how much you are worth!

For this position I think I'm quite good actually.

But, what if...

... they wont hire me? Well, here's a "just in case" face-palm for the company to use when they have realized their mistake:

... and YES, I am cocky as hell right now, but it really helps me keeping a good self confidence before the interview (which is always quite good. No one likes to hire Mr. Insecure). =P

Peace out!

The Utøya Massacre... it's the games' fault!

2011-08-04T19:32:00.000+02:00

Ever heard that one before?

Of course, the living dead has spoken again... for that is what you call the people who thinks like this, right? So many times have I heard this, and so many times have these zombies been proven wrong. Why wont they just go and rot in their tomb they call a home?

Quickly now - before anyone else gets hurt!

To get to the point: Apparently games such as World of Warcraft and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is the source of all evil, once again. They are taken off the shelves as an action to prevent things like this to happen again.

Isn't it sad that this is the conclusion they come to? Games made this idiot kill all those youngsters? GAMES?! Really?!

So he was a completely normal person, like any one of us. Strolling around in town looking for something nice to buy. Oh, look! It's World of Warcraft! Let's give it a try, shall we? Wow, this game is amazing. Suddenly, when I watch that animated character dance... I feel the urge to... wait... what is the game telling me... go out to... an island... and... what I can't hear it... kill all the youngsters out there? Well, now when I have played World of Warcraft, that makes sense! It is perfectly human to do! How did I never see this before?! Thank you World of Warcraft, SOOO MUCH! Now, let's go and take some lives...

THE PROBLEM IS IN THEIR HEADS!

Please read the headline once again if you you didn't understand what I wanted to tell you.

Yes, that's right! It's in their freaking heads! The person can watch a movie, play a game, read a book, watch some kids on the street playing, listen to a friends story, have a nightmare (yes, even that) and suddenly SNAP.

If a person think killing innocent people makes sense, the problem is most certainly not in any legal games, movies or books out there. Sure, they can affect the person, but he has always had the disorder in his head. The game might have triggered this particular idea yes, but if it wasn't a game, it would have been something else. Maybe he just had a bad dream, huh? Are we going to take dreams off the shelves now? Please go a head and try...

Who am I?

2011-08-03T00:27:00.000+02:00

Lately I have been trying to figure out who I am and what I want with my life. It is tricky! Both the field of Public Relations and the User Experience Design areas have appealed to me quite a bit. When I think about each area of work I get very excited and starts getting tons of ideas straight away.

Which one should I go for? What if I go for the wrong one?!

If I can work within PokerStrategy.com again, that choice will be much easier, but I cannot rely on this. I have to make a decision at some point and always have backup plans.

Public Relations - So creative!

This, I think, might be a very creative opportunity for me... if you can talk about it like that. It could be very challenging and also bring me deeper into something I already scratched on the surface a couple of times. Will I become a master of Viral Marketing?

At the moment no offer has been made, only CV's has been sent in. I am not in a position where I can pick and choose yet.

User Experience Design - So neat!

I just looked into this area a bit more this morning. Reading a job design, I felt like I was reading a description of myself. That made me start to think. I cannot rely on this PR thing to work out the way I want. I need a backup. Will this be my backup... or my main choice?

It's so damn hard!

Experiences from the past #2: Mamma Mia! Italia!

2011-07-30T13:20:00.000+02:00

The last of my series of lazyness. Or, almost. On Monday we are going, once again, down into the depts of lower St. Michaels Cave. Thought I might summarize the experiences in one post instead of two ;)

Oh yes, my parents and el hermano will be in da house tomorrow. Finally bringing them down to Gib (although my brother already visited me there once before.

A few days ago my thoughts was to blog about the massacre in Utøya, Norway. But... even though the victims surely deserve attention, the bastard that massacred them does not, since he seems to enjoy all attention he can get. I will therefore cut it short with giving out my thoughts to the victims and their families.

Now... back to topic!

Milan, Verona and Venice!

BAM BAM BAM! Three big cultural mind explosions. The trip to Italy was amazing. Although I didn't have time to visit my friend Emilio, I got to experience Milan - the town of shopping; Verona - the town of romance and singing pizza bakers, and finally Venice - the town of pure H2O awesomeness.

I have summarized the trip and experience in pictures. Each picture has some text explaining whats going on, so feel free to click on the pictures to also read this part of the story, instead of just "looking" at them. ;)

Experiences from the past #1: Seville

2011-07-27T14:22:00.001+02:00

Just packed my bag for the Sweden trip. Got everything I suppose. Well, time to tell the story about Seville... at least the parts I still remember. :)

Tapas, shopping and exploration!

In early June this year, Vlada, Qixiang, Sarah, some other girl and I went to Seville, Spain. It was quite a spontaneous thing really. I had never been there, neither had the others.

Apart from all the really cool buildings we saw, we did some shopping in the various stores around the main street of the "turistic" part of Seville. Also, I must say I am impressed by the tapas we ate. Before I was was like "Eeh, can we go eat chinese instead?". But when I arrived at this place... wow. Also, the drinks were quite nice. I do recommend trying Seville out only for the food experience.

Enough bla bla, give us pictures!

Keeping promises...

2011-07-26T02:16:00.000+02:00

During this week, I will try to catch up on the things I've promised to blog about. I was actually going to put a video about it, but now I realized that I actually got no functioning camera available. Gah!

Anyway, since I am going to Sweden to experience the worst thing in my life (pulling my wisdom tooth out) and then crying at my cousins wedding since I wont be able to eat the wedding cake, I will set up automatic blog updates while I'm gone.

Sharing experiences from the past

This is what I will call the blog post entries that I will set up for you. I know I'm not super interesting, but I thought it might be fun to learn a bit more about some places in this part of the world.

Part 1: Seville
Part 2: Lower Saint Michaels Cave
Part 3: Beach/VIP Party 2011
Part 4: Italy

Teaching my dad how to fly!

As many people know, my dad is afraid of flying. I mean, really, he is. He hasn't been flying since he got married to my mom, and that was like close to 40 years ago. On Sunday, the stubbornness of the youngest son the family, will have payed off. My dad will come with me and my mom to Gibraltar. Of course, my brother and his girlfriend will join too, but they were too afraid of being on the same flight, so they will be arriving earlier.

I, of course, will attend the whole trip to make sure I capture the whole experience of watching my dad shit himself thousands of meters over the earth... wait. I know how that came out. Let me explain: I will do it, because who would else let the world know how scared he was, in the detail the world truly deserves?

Anyway, enjoy the blog posts I promised, see you next week, when I will talk about how everything turned out!

Designing my future

2011-07-24T13:00:00.000+02:00

Before I start updating you on the adventures in Seville, The Rock, the VIP event in Gibraltar or the most recent: the trip to Italy, I will write something about what's going to happen next in my life. I've been thinking a lot about this.

A blog is the road to success?

As you can see, I've updated my blog a bit. It now contains pretty much everything. I still need to update my CV though... and my LinkedIn page as well I guess. There's lots of things one have to do when one becomes unemployed. I'm glad though that the reason was redundancy and not something else. Now after all the support from everyone, it feels like people appreciated me and my work. Thanks guys!

So, will this blog help me to ultimately reach my dream job? Who knows, but hopefully it will help me sustain myself financially until I find it. At the moment two is three big dreams for me.

Starting a career in PR & Viral Marketing
Starting a career in or around the Gaming Industry

Poker is a very interesting industry as well, and I do love Community Management, but I'm unsure any other company than PokerStrategy.com could top the experience I had with Poker Community Management.

Freelance... until April!

Yep! That's the plan! I will do various freelance-jobs until April. Then, I will re-evaluate the situation and see where I can make a successful career.

Click my banner at the top of this page to read more about what I can do. Maybe I'll end up working for you?

My life, split in half...

2011-07-15T13:20:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone. Guess I will have more time to blog now... finally. Fredrik and I no longer work at PokerStrategy.com. I know when people say "it was a mutual agreement", it means something else. If I say that I would have done the same thing if I was my boss - I would not be lying.

I still love PokerStrategy.com... and I will be back!

PokerStrategy.com is the best company I ever worked at, and this has not changed that fact. PokerStrategy.com was and still is a big part of my life. Even though there is not an opening at the moment in my old team, there are plenty of other opportunities, where I know I am good enough to do a brilliant job.

PokerStrategy.com is not a villain and I think that if they can, they will see the opportunity to fit us into other positions, maybe even better suited. I already know one or two positions where I would be a very solid investment. I believe in myself. If I didn't believe in myself I woudn't even have moved to Gibraltar in the first place.

The important part is that no one is to blame. Again, there is no villain here. The decision had to be made, but it is also not the end of the world. I am good at the things I do and whoever invests with me will be as pleased as PokerStrategy.com was, and still is, with my work there as a Community Manager for the Swedish Community.

Until then?

I don't know, freelance work maybe? Probably I'll freelance and expand my experience in different areas until something pops up at the only company that I currently would like to work at... well not completely true, but I don't feel quite ready to leave Gibraltar quite yet and here I'm unsure that many other companies would be able to handle my creative explosivity.

"You go that way, I go home!" :P

Full Tilt Poker license suspended - What will happen next?

2011-07-01T16:36:00.003+02:00

Hi everyone! Once again I have been lazy with blogging. This time it's because I'm waiting on some images from friends. Then I will blog about: Seville, Lower St. Michaels Cave, PokerStrategy.com Beach Party and more.

But now I will talk about Full Tilt Poker.

Full Tilt Poker, what happened?

What happened is that they currently have their license suspended by the AGCC. There will be a hearing on the 26th of July, if I remember correctly, and all transactions in Full Tilt are frozen until this date, minimum.

This means that a lot of players are very nervous at the moment about what will happen. Maybe this will turn out good, maybe less good. It's up to the people that will talk in the hearing I guess.

Applying a KGC-license... and selling?

At the moment it seems like they are thinking about applying a Kahnawake Gaming Commission License to be able to continue their business if the AGCC-situation isn't solved in FTPs favour. They have also been talking about selling... All in all. There is a lot of things going on at the moment.

I think that Full Tilt Poker will do their very best to get the best outcome of this situation and that they will do whatever they can to make their costumers happy again. I'm an optimist, I know, but FTP is too big of a brand to just give up like that. I would fight for it until the end if I were them.

What can we do in the meantime?

Well, what do poker players do? THEY GRIND! Wait... I know what you think "hey, fuck off, I got lots of money in there and you just tell me to go and grind!". Okay. We can't do much more than wait until the situation is resolved, but we can do what we enjoy - to play poker. See it as a challenge. Start with $50 and try to see how far you can go. Remember that no one has said that you WILL loose the money, so the money is not lost!

I usually don't want to get TOO much into "hey look at our great deals" in my blogs, but I know how many of you feel out there. You want to play poker, you need some money to start with. Well, I just got some good news for you.

Just click the banner below and see what suits you. Before you know it, the Full Tilt Poker situation might be solved already and you can resume where you left off, if you want.

Oh btw, if you are Swedish, you can get some more information about this from the Swedish Business Unit Manager here:

I'm going under...

2011-05-28T12:41:00.000+02:00

... The Rock!

Really epic moment of my life here in Gibraltar. Visiting the old tunnels from the second world war was really fantastic. Every road had its history, every room had its purpose. I really wonder how it would have been like to live there. I bet Håkan would have liked it, he was talking about cave girls from the first moment we arrived.

Jimmy Hoffa haunts the tunnels!

Apparently a lot of people died mining these tunnels, so naturally there are ghost stories. There's one ghost that pulls shirts and whispers stuff and another one that smokes cigarrs. May it be Jimmy Hoffa perhaps? Have we finally located where he has gone? Maybe he's like Håkan, into cave chicks or something. :P

What? THERZ MORZ?! Me likz!

Apparently, the long tour we took, barely covers half of the whole complex. There is lots more tunnels everywhere, but unfortunately we couldn't check them out. Maybe because of safety, or maybe because security. Some parts are still being used by military I've heard.

Also, there is a lot of natural caves in there. One natural lake inside plus a couple of cave complexes that I have no idea how big they are. They say there might be quite a lot still undiscovered caves in there, so deep that no one really any idea of where the bottom is.

Would be awesome to sometime see a map or a 3d model of the whole complex, to visualize what's really in there. It's almost like a small city in there. Makes me think of Moria... :P

Anyway, less talk, more pictures bitch!

First glimpse of the tunnel complex. Some parts were quite narrow, others more wide. Some had electricity, some not.

Big boys in here. Had an old bunker (with WINDOWS) inside. Also had an escape tunnel leading to the Rock Hotel.

Would you like a Filét Mignon, sir? Extra rust to that, sir?

Ventilation thingy. Good to have unless you like toxic fumes! :)

One of two still excisting power plant engines, driven by oil I think. Usually these are found on ships or something...

Want to have a shit? Be my guest! There's even old moulded toilet paper around!

I think this part went up to another complex, which I yet have to see...

I want a f*cking calzone, POR FAVOR!

After the tunnel trip, Håkan, Trine, Johan and I met up with Vlada and enjoyed some italian/spanish/gibraltarian pizza. :)

Actually, I can say now that I have found the best pizzeria of Gibraltar, honestly. I'm not saying it's as great as the pizzas in Sweden, but this one beats the rest of the places by far. Finally some proper _PIZZA_.

For gods sake, how hard can it be to make a proper Pizza? I mean, Pizza Express makes small, disguisting pizzas that cost double as much and tastes half as good as frozen pizzas you can buy at Morrisons. Mamma Mia on the other hand, made REAL pizzas. Thank you Daniella.

Tonight is the night...

2011-05-15T11:29:00.002+02:00

I have been waiting for something like this since 2006. Last time we won one of the most even games in history. The time before that we turned around a game like never before. This time, we just have to wait and see. I feel the adrenaline pumping already.

Yesterday my investment finally payed off!

Yesterday we went to the casino again - Pelle, Håkan and I. As usual we invest 10% in each other to reduce variance. Usually it doesn't really pay off since we are the masters of bubbling/being sucked out, but this time... this time it was time!

Håkan felt quite good about his result

I had the most card dry night ever, so for me the entertainment value was low (even though I made it to the Final Table this time). Pelle played a roller coaster game and bubbled again, but when we thought all hope was gone... HÅKAN wins the tournament (well actually they made a deal HU, but that's okay). First timer! Congrats!

Sweden vs. Finland in Ice Hockey = ALWAYS EPIC!

Both Sweden and Finland has made it to the finals. This game will indeed be epic. After crushing them in the two latest finals we met, I am honestly afraid of this one. We are two even games, but this time I think Finland got a tiny bit stronger team. I mean, just look at what their young star Granlund did in their game that took them to the finals:

But then again...

Håkan for fuck sake, stop being a sissy!

I have been trying to convince Håkan and Pelle now to come and do some boxing at the gym in Atlantic Suites, but he says his ass hurts to much so he cant come... I MEAN COME ON! "My ass hurts!"?

Speaking of which, there is rumors that Håkan hade some fun with "Mr. Cocktus" this Friday, but he can't remember it. Although after this evening there is some strange pain is his "behind"... Is Håkan still avaailable?

Oh yes. Here is some pictures from the company party - a la Sven of course (always taking pictures in the sexiest way possible).

Picture taken by monkey

Somehow I find the background quite amusing...

Picture also taken by monkey

Okay, that's it! I've had enough!

2011-05-06T00:11:00.000+02:00

I'm really pissed of at the moment. I mean, once it is okay. Twice I could understand, but when it happens time after time after time everywhere I go in this damn town, then I get quite angry. Especially when it is such a serious thing and could mean life or death when it really happens.

What am I talking about? Yes, the fire alarm...

I will die in my bed!

Since I now have NO respect for the fire alarm what so ever, I normally just close the door and falls back asleep whenever it happens during the night. Come on, going up in the middle of the night every week just because the fire alarm system isn't working? No way. If it sometimes happens for real, I will for sure die in my bed.

Important things should be flawless!

An important thing such as a fire alarm system, which could mean life or death, should not malfunction. EVER. If it gets turned on randomly, will it turn on when it really happens? If it does, will people take it seriously? Don't cry wolf someone once said.

When you design a system like this it has to be flawless. Is that so hard to understand? How stupid are you guys that work with these things? Come on, you are practically a potential cause of people dying, because they don't respect the fire alarm anymore! Sabotage! Murderers!

Some things gets me really angry. This is one of them.

IN MY FACE!

Now to a little "treat" so to speak. On my behalf. Last Monday when I won money from my newly arrived boss Per "Illvillja" Wolf, I suddenly find myself being blinded by a Hello Kitty cake being squeezed into my face.

Apparently this little trick was planned for weeks by my fellow colleagues. Also, in addition to the cake, we were actually streaming with video live to our community. Public humiliation!

I'm already plotting my revenge...

Barcelona, mi amor...

2011-05-01T01:01:00.001+02:00

That's right ladies and gentlemen, I raided Barcelona!

Gathered my troops, consisting of a Latvian brainmelter, a Danish crazy person, an English ninja and a Swedish mascot. Then it was time to jump into the battle wagon, Phils car, and go to Malaga airport.

Alright I can sit in the middle... wait a minute!

06:30 the trip took off, from Kings Warf. Johan took the front seat, and I of course didn't blink before I captured the middle seat (with one girl on each side... gigidy!). Problem was... I realized there was no belt. Well, heck. If I die I die... At least I will get 4000 virgins if I die...

Qixiang, wtf are you doing here?!

Finally at the airport, we ended up in a huge cue at the gate. Talking a bit about this and that, suddenly getting interrupted by a couple of famous faces! One of them was my flat mate Qixiang, whom where flying to Italy the same day. I had no idea he was flying from Malaga. I thought he was going to fly from Gibraltar, since he has this Chinese VISA problem.

Entering the plane, this fucking smell reminded me of how much I hate to fly. And yes, it is pretty much only because of this smell. Like kind of dry air or something. It fucks my head up. Then the seats are never really comfortable. GAH!

Arriving at Barcelona after just an hour or so, was really nice. We immediately realized what an awesome town this was, even if the weather wasn't optimal. Not long after we had sat down, drinking the most expensive sangria in my life, Nick finally shows up. HEY Mr. Fist! How you doin'?

A BEER MACHINE! OH MY!

After having some food and getting lost near the cathedral district, we finally get in touch with the people we are renting the apartment from and can get some assistance finding the damn place.

Shit, this place was awesome. Really small, but smart floor plan! Double bed + a bulk bed + A sofa for short people (yes, for Phil) and most important of all: A BEER MACHINE! Johan was more enthusiastic than me about this machine, but we all enjoyed it's juices flowing down our throats. It was almost like being in a really awesome porn movie. MOM AND DAD, PLEASE SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU ARE READING!

After warming up at the apartment, the following happened:

(really dodgy, nick-looking, place)

Da Buzz, Da Cold, Da Fantastic!

The next day we ran down to this huge Cathedral to inspect how long the cue was + how much it cost. We did some measurements, bought a coupon thingy and then jumped onto the first tourist bus we could find.

Finding the Science Museum thingy, with a rain forest garden in it!

City hall (I think) motha fuckas!

We finished the day off with some more partying, in this goth club Nicky found. Pretty awesome. Some really strange things happened there and they were actually playing some Swedish emo goth music. Was surprised when I could understand the lyrics :D

The last day we went shopping like hell. I found lots of nice things and now feel quite like a snob or something, buying that expensive stuff. Never really invested that much into clothes before. Please don't ask how much I spent...

After, we went to this Asian wok place. Really nice food. Some of it I had been missing a lot, since I haven't been able to find anything of that quality near Gibraltar. If anyone knows a good place (I know the Wok already, but this place was way better imo).

Bloody fights, and I missed it!

When me and Vlada had gone home to rest, the rest of the guys went to a couple of dark and horny bars. Apparently there was a big fight there between a drug dealer and the bar owner. There was blood and stuff, and police came. Can't believe I missed it. At least I didn't miss the one in Gibraltar yesterday... At least now I know we got a Titan in our company ;)

Just a little note about Håkans house warming party: AWESOME! See pictures here!

Who put poison in my drink?!

2011-04-19T00:41:00.000+02:00

I hate being sick! Ok. Who doesn't. But still, from my perspective I'm more important than the rest of you, so please feel sorry for me.

Anyway, I had a, otherwise, great weekend with our Coach Johan Storåkers here in Gibraltar. Starting with the house warming party of Johan (Renner), ending with a steak at Gauchos tonight. Well, at least everyone but me. I tried to eat a Ceasar Salad but failed miserably... I had like three bites and then I was full. Weird, considering I only ate 5 Yoghurts the last 48 hours.

"Fuck this, I've had enough!"

Okay, eating antibiotics for over two months is not fun. First, I can't drink, then I can't eat and now I can't eat again! I am suppose to take this shit until the next appointment, which should have been two weeks ago, but I haven't heard anything. This shit is doing me more harm than good. Actually, more harm than what I'm actually taking it for!

"Where are my four little friends?!"

Someone got a little bit drunk last Friday... or some people. Or.. everyone but me! :( It was the coolest party EVER and I couldn't drink! DAMN DAMN DAMN! I hate when that happens!

Oh yes, there were many more people than what is seen in the pictures below ;) It was NOT a sausage fest!

Oh, yes - the quote is from Vlada when she lost her glass of Sangria, containing "four little friends" (pieces of fruit). Some people tend to get quite cute when they are drunk, don't you think? ;)

As someone might kill me, I will only put a few pictures out from the party, but if you ask nicely, I might show you some really funny images of my flat mate ;)

"Wow, this one has both sex and violence! Bi-winning!"

I just watched the first episode of the new sitcom "Game of Thrones". It was pretty good actually. I really like the concept and it really has this special feeling. Not only because Boromir is in it, but also because it's pretty much uncensored violence and sex, making it really authentic!

I highly recommend this one... it's like "the new Heroes" or something. Speaking of popularity potential, not about super powers.

Hot, high and wet...

2011-04-12T02:33:00.000+02:00

Summer has come! We had our first really hot days here in Gibraltar. Of course we spent them at the pool, what did you think?! Sugar has started to have some really weird effect on me by the way... I should warn you guys. Really, I'm not kidding.

On the Saturday Qixiang, Vlada and I did something on main street... can't remember what. Wait. Yes! We ate Tapas at this place and realized we were 10p short on the bill. Well, fortunately we walk pretty fast, so they didn't catch our little cheeky trick. To celebrate that we saved 10p, we hit the pool area in Kings Warf. Awesome.

Qixiang hit his head in the bottom. Quite funny... for me at least. :)

"Strike again!? Let's bust the mother fuckers knees!"

On the Saturday evening, after trying out the pool, we had a Swedish gathering. We met these crazy swedes, with some crazy attitudes. Don't get me wrong, I liked them all! Especially the funny little girls one of the chicks brought with her. Probably in the same age as Pelle and Natalie's kids... maybe they will get along. It's about time they get some girlfriends anyways.

Aaaanyway! I was the second best bowler, after this damn Thomas guy... son of a bitch. I was tempted to just "slip" and accidentally throw my bowling ball towards his knees. What? You think I'm a bad loser?! FUCK YOU!

After the bowling, we hit the fabulous restaurant Gilberto's or whatever it's called. Kebab place. Rebecca's idea. Then it was time to go premium bear hunting (yeah, I actually mean BEAR). I think the place is called The Anchor Bar, on the back side of Water Gardens. A Swedish really awesome, bear looking guy owned the place. Gave us free shots, he did!

"Håkan, give me more money!"

Of course, I didn't have anymore money, so I had my bitch pay for me. That's how I roll.

Had an awesome time though!

"We need to get the retarded bird out of there!"

The next day we all pretty much went to the pool all day, after enjoying an English Breakfast at Lord Nelsons of course and then an nice ice cream in the sun.

Really hot weather. Both me and Johan contaminated the pool as well... finding this RETARDED SON OF A BIRD! Apparently it was trapped in between some stuff. We tried to discuss how to get it out, but realized we care about our eyes too much and went back to the sun bathing chairs thingys. Fortunately some dude came later with a net and got the bastard out of there. Cool.

That's all! Oh yes. On Thursday I'm playing the national championships in badminton with Jun. Wish us luck!

Alone with three girls...

2011-04-07T10:51:00.000+02:00

Okay, I know that I'm almost as frequent as Santa Claus with my blogging, but there has been too much at work lately... so I'll blame that this time. Anyways, this time I'll talk a bit about my quality time with my three favorite girls.

On a side note: Poker is going awesome atm. Check my graph for March!

Last Saturday we... or Quisqueya decided that it was time to go shopping in Algeciras with Jun. Vlada and I tagged along, since the weather was okay and it has been some time since we did some shopping. We took the bus from La Linea, which was pretty nice, since you could just take some time to sleep. That's at least what Jun did. She passed out in like 1 second. "Switch off!" like Quisqueya said.

"Watch it or they will shit on you!"

After getting lost in Algerciras, we pass this dumpster area where they dump all the fish. Not so surprisingly there were quite a few seagulls swarming the place. Pretty much a mine field for anyone who tried to pass through. Don't worry guys, WE MADE IT!

After asking a few old ladies and a man that no one listened to, we got some directions to get to this Corte Ingles or whatever it's called. Huge shopping center with lots of stuff to buy... for girls at least. At the bottom floor there was an area for guys, but they had pretty much just spread out the same shit everywhere. Not much to choose from. Maybe 5 different kinds of 'decent' shirts and 7 pairs of 'decent' pants. I ended up buying one shirt, one pair of pants and finally a pair of sunglasses.

"Hey, I paid like half of what I should have!"

Fortunately, they had some kind of huge sale, so I paid like half of what I should have. I had no idea! What a win! With happy faces (well... at least me and Vlada, since Jun and Quisqueya _still_ couldn't decide what underwear to buy) I asked Jun "OEH BU OEH!" and she answered "OEH!" which means she is hungry.

"This tastes like shit! I will never eat here again!"

After this we strolled around in the town taking pictures and ate some ice cream. I also baught another shirt from a chinese guy that had EXACTLY one, long, shaft of beard (is this how you say it?) coming out from his chin... lol, "chin-ese" :D

After this we went home. Vlada and I were pretty tired, so we took it easy the rest of the evening. The bed has never felt as good...

Tripping on the finish line...

2011-03-28T03:33:00.000+02:00

So close, but yet so far. A day filled with food, poker, Rock Band and... Blade III?

Damn, it's only 13:00? I usually sleep longer than that on a Sunday!... wait a minute. Summer time. Right. Anyway, time for English breakfast, as usual? We gathered up at Lord Nelsons, only to witness bad service and less food than usual. Is that a way to treat a regular? Forgetting Vladas Apple Pie... big mistake. No tip for you this time!

"YES! I won the satellite for the $100k guaranteed!"

Yesterday I played the satellite on Bodog Poker to play the $100k Guaranteed. Good money, few players (500), good value! I just finished it, as we speak, and is very sad to report that I came 107, where 63 places where paid. Sucks extra hard since I also busted (midway through) in the $10k Guaranteed Freeroll.

Tough luck!

I plussed $75 on my cash games today though, so profit! Oh, speaking of profit, have a look at my new page for you guys that want to learn poker (I know Sven would like to learn) :P

"Headhunting is the shit, everyone wins!"

Lately I have been headhunting a bit for PokerStrategy.com. Turns out it could be quite profitable, but not only for me. The dude/girl gets a job, PokerStrategy.com gets a good employee (yeah, if I think you are not serious, I wont even bother referring you).

PROFIT!

I have two guys in the pipeline at the moment after assisting them through the process. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

"Vlada, you wanna play drums now?"

Apparently not. This little girl realized that after trying out the guitar (after a lot of persuasion) that it was quite fun! Would you believe how fun things can be that you have not tried? ;) ... AND she actually kicked ass. Most people play... not so good, the first time, but she scored around 85% in average.

Another discovered talent was Trine. Pretty good at guitar, but also on drums (Vladas speciality). Although it was not only pretty accurate, it was also pretty entertaining! Especially when the complicated parts came, Trine did a... quite interesting solo. Apparently, hitting everything at the same time increases the chance of hitting all the right notes. Would you believe?! :)

"Suck my blade, mother fucker!"

I finished the day off with blogging and watching Blade... III I think it was? Not a very good movie, but sometimes its quite nice to just sit back and watch a crappy movie with a lot of action. Turns out, if you poison Dracula with something green, he dies... and so does all the other vampires! Sorry... I spoiled the ending of a GREAT MOVIE!... or...?

Anyway, thanks for reading. I should have been to bed like three hours ago. Night night!

First pro signed! Johan Storåkers works for PokerStrategy.com!

2011-03-15T01:10:00.008+01:00

Hi everyone! Finally a lot of things are starting to get going in my life. For instance, today the Swedish PokerStrategy.com-team could announce that they will now work together with the Full Tilt Poker pro Johan Storåkers! Isn't that the coolest thing ever? Johan Storåkers, working as a coach for us?!

Taking poker more serious

Two tables now. Advancing. Everything thanks to our own poker material. I love the irony of me not really watching videos closely or even creating a poker blog, when I work for PokerStrategy.com and tell everyone else to do it. Guess what! I've done it! I got a poker blog and I've even set up some nice goals for myself. It feels good to have things on paper. I CAN do this.

Although my graph for March 2011 looks terrible. A lot of bad beats followed by tilt -> bad play. Although after realizing I played like an idiot, I have taken some serious time to watch videos and stuff. Stopping the madness.

Storåkers first show is on Wed. the 16th!

On Wednesday Johan will have his first show, where he will be playing poker, talking live with the community as well as discussing different interesting topics with a secret guest. 20:30 CET it will start, and you can read more here or check out the coaching here!

Okay, enough being Mr. salesman pro. I've started editing some of the videos Johan has sent to me. I messed up the quality of the first one, although it's still okay. Next one will have the original quality, I promise! :)

It's actually quite exciting working with someone so bright. Someone that can live out of poker totally. It is not an easy thing. This is something I admire. Maybe one day I will be able to as well. Not that I want to, 'cause I would go nuts if I didn't have a job to go to every day (yes, I'm serious).

Fun things every day.

Yesterday, we were playing "Werewolf" (Info), something similar to the party game, Mafia (Wiki). It was me, Vlada, Håkan and the Chinese gang. I was the first one to be voted for execution... everyone ALWAYS thinks I'm the villain. Well... I was.

Last Saturday we had a carnival party in La Linea. Crazy. Håkan got his first "Spanish shitface-experience". Interesting, now I know how Håkan is when he is drunk. Pretty wild for a polite Swedish guy.

Last Friday I first had dinner with some old friends, to later join up with the others at my place, playing a home game of Poker. Of course the fishes, Quisqueya and Håkan won a lot. Too bad Håkan turned a better straight than I flopped. Gah, shit happens.

This week we will probably have a Rock Band evening. The usual people are invited + some new faces. It will be fun. Can't wait.

Life is pretty nice right now, even though I'm on antibiotics and have to stay sober for the rest of the month.

See you in the next blog entry!

Big surprise, you shall get

2011-03-05T23:40:00.004+01:00

Wha', what the h*ll happened here?

I re-designed my blog, that's what happened! I sometimes get bored with how my blog looks and this sometimes was yesterday evening. How come you always feels most creative in the evening, when you should really get to bed. Well, I spent the night brainstorming and this morning, around 14:00 when I woke up, I started re-designing!

Bye bye Lara, off to Bavaria you go!

Last Tuesday we had dinner at Charlie's, to celebrate Lara's last evening in Gib. Unfortunately I had a fever, which coincidentally boosted my comedic part of the brain. I told a few, actually, good jokes! Yeah, I know you can't believe it and I hardly can either!

Right know though, it's the young las eating that delicious ice cream that is sick. Poor girl!

I guess it's that time of the year. Everyone is pretty much getting sick. But after a wave of sickness, there's either summer or x-mas, so there is at least SOMETHING to look forward to :)

Why am I lying to you guys?

Actually, there is a lot of things to look forward to. Not only is Håkan starting next week, we also might have another guy coming into our team (and maybe yet another!). Can't fill you in too much about that though, but I think my workplace will be a hundreds times more fun, and creative!

Also, a lot of newcomers have arrived, and a lot of them are quite cool. Will investigate exactly how cool they are and get back to you hopefully not too shortly.

Also a lot of nice games are coming out in not too long. First out was Rift, something I'm playing currently with a few guys from work (Guild: Momentum). Then Dragon Age 2 is on its way out this summer and a little bit later we will all enjoy Star Wars: The Old Republic. Light side (apparently?), here I come!

Coach me, bitch - I'm going all-in!

Have been thinking a long time now about getting serious with Poker. At least more serious. I started a poker blog, started getting coachings and moved up to NL25. Going okay actually, but the start was very... lively. The live poker is going very well in terms of "good play", but I've suffered a few bad beats lately, which kind of sucks.

Have you guys seen my grinding station?

First day at the beach... in February?!

2011-02-28T21:51:00.004+01:00

Hi everybody, I'm back! Still, I suck at blogging as frequent as I time after time promise you guys (I guess that means I got a life). Anyway, here is another post about my first trip to the Tarifa beach with some Germans' and some Kristles', and Johans', Vladas' and Sergeys'... and stuff.

I've been at the f*cking beach in f*cking February!

The feeling when we arrived in Tarifa that Saturday morning was pretty cool. Started with checking into the motel, almost 10 minutes driving from Tarifa. The place reminded me and Johan of a skiing resort, with all the wood and stuff, but it was quite nice... although the so called "pool" was overgrown, filled with annoying frogs (that Hannes and Johan fruitlessly tried to kill), looked more like something nature decided to take back... and keep forever.

Melvin, the new energy drink

Oh right! We went to the beach! I got two films I made with my iPhone, but somehow I can't get the sound working... probably my computers fault. Anyway, lying there in perfectly good beach weather (not like in the "real" summer though), some of the freaks jumped into the water. Kristle I think was the first, then came Melvin, like a torpedo and I think I saw Hannes jumping in there as well. Michael went down to touch the water, but the German in him said "sheisse".

It's incredible how some people have a lot of energy. I think Melvin went from hyper active to zombie, to hyper active again pretty much the whole evening. Watching Melvin is like watching porn, but not in a different way if you know what I mean... erhh ... now I think I understand why he thought the whole trip that I would somehow rape him.

You can see another video, by Melvin here!

Although one funny thing when we had dinner at the beach was when Melvin ordered the prawns. I have never seen someone failing so much at eating prawns before. Kristles shirt was über sprayed by prawn juices. Awesome.

Another funny thing was Marvin, the drunk Germanorwegian. Awesome dude, truly.

Una copa y una otra litra de Sangria por farvor!

After resting up, or whatever people were doing, Johan, Vlada and I decided to get some damn Sangria at the damn wooden bar at the damn motel. After having our first jar of Sangria, the whole thing turned into some kind of comedy sketch. One more person came, which led to us ordering another glass and another jar - "una copa y una otro litro de Sangria por farvor" - something that was both tasty and funnier after every time someone new showed up.

After a while, we finally ended up at some bar in the old town of Tarifa. I didn't stay for long, since I could hardly talk or see straight anymore, and on top of that I was tired as a... very very tired person. I went home, only to miss out on the messed up things those people did afterwards. I should probably not blog about that part...

Screw you guys, I'm going home

On the next day we were pretty much hung over and annoyed. Couldn't find each other when we were suppose to meet up in town (some people wanted to hide in clothe stores) and then we could hardly agree on where to eat. Finally we ended up at a Chinese place, where Melvin "again" ordered prawns - scaring the crap out of the waitress when he pretended to burn his hands on the plate. Priceless.

After that, it was time to go home. Lots of clouds and stuff anyway we thought, but to realise that the weather actually got pretty nice in Tarifa once we arrived in Gibraltar. Oh well. On the way home we stopped at some viewing point near Tarifa where you should be able to see Africa... although it was too foggy for us to see much.

In the evening, I could spot from my balcony a pretty nice sunset. I bet it looked even better from Tarifa. Awesome.

Great trip, lots of fun! Let's do it again sometime!

New people in my life...

2011-02-10T13:49:00.001+01:00

"I'm at Elliot Hotel, and I'm hungry as hell!". I better just go and pick him up for some nice food at Charlies. - That was the day that Johan arrived to Gib, 30th of jan. I ate the love of my life: Chicken Tikka Masala with Mushroom rice and Johan joined me, believing I know good food (which I do).

Now Johan is sitting next to me, as the third Community Manager of the Swedish team. In short, his crazy, but lovely girlfriend will join us as well (as mental support for me, since I need backup in mocking my colleagues).

Bruni singing Rammstein... awesome!

DU HAST! Nothing beats a German hard core girl singing Du hast in your apartment. This was from two days ago, when we had another of our famous Rock Band evenings. It was me, Johan, Fredrik, Qixiang, Cecy, Vlada, Bruni, Phil and Kristle this time.

Since I now bought Rock Band 1 and 3 in addition to my Rock Band 2, we had a few more songs to choose from. My favorites was of course Bohemian Rapsody, Portal - Still Alive and all the Tenacious D songs. The others complained a bit, but I dont care. I know what I like.

I hope everyone enjoyed the tacos and nachos that Kristle and I made.

Vlada sure knows how to drum

I just realized that Vlada isnt only very cute when she drums, but she is also getting pretty good at it. Phil has been trying hard to get it to work, but Vlada seemed to get the hang of it after just a few times. I'm impressed tbh, I wasnt sure she had it in her. Now the girls can finally have their girl band. :)

Banned by Kristle...

Since the first "big" Rock Band session we had, Phil got banned from singing by the girls (mainly Kristle). I dont mind that much, 'cause I block it out, but there were unhappy faces when Phil started to howl. Although, I've seen worse. And some songs he is not that bad at, at all! It's all about finding the right song!

Won my first tournament, for real this time!

2011-01-24T01:24:00.000+01:00

"Do you want to join us for the £25 +5+5 bounty freeze-out tonight?". "Sure, I havent played in a while, so why not?".

All-in?! You sure?

Sometimes lady luck actually does go down on you. This time, it was my turn!

I sat down with Stanislav, Ivan, Daniel, CSR new boss guy, new Romanian guy and maybe someone else. Started slow, but also a bit sad. My son Stanislav managed to bust first with KK on a AQTx-board.

After a triple up, I was pretty much okay to get all the way to the final table. There, I survived as mid/smallstack för a while, watching the others bust - one after one... well not completely true, since in the end two guys busted at the same time, getting me instantly in the money.

If I win, I'll buy you a candy bar

Joked around a bit in the breaktime with Sven, making an unprofitable bet to offer him a bar of chocolate if I ship this thing. Good for him that I always live up to my promises... bets. As a thanks though, he took my picture and made a forum post after the tournament to show my community members that I'm not a fish.

Anyway, I ended up as small stack versus som Spanish guy with 2,5-3,5x my chip stack. Turns out he can't play heads up at all. I started to eat off his chips until I had a little bit more than he had. Finally we manages to get into an all-in situation with me having a decent hand. K2s. Turns out he has K8o and I realize my disadvantage.

clubs x clubs clubs...

One club away from his flush and one duce away from my win. River says BAM, here you go!

Result: £290 + bountys (£25x2 as it was double bounty night)

I'm back! Want to work with me? Read on!

2011-01-09T21:08:00.004+01:00

Hi everyone, I'm back in Gibraltar - currently being amazed on how much work I've managed to get done of the giant pile that was waiting for me... after one month vacation. :P

After everything is in order, I will show you pictures of my new apartment, but for now, you will have to wait. ;)

Isildur1 AKA Viktor Blom

Today I am a bit beaten, cause of waiting up late last night, being one of the first in the world to write the news about Isildur1 being Viktor Blom (Blom90). Wasn't a big surprise tbh, but it's nice to finally know for sure!

Read my news here! (Swedish)

This is the time to get a job, let me help!

I will help you with your CV, your Cover Letter and to make a good impression so that you can properly show your potential future employer your qualities and increase your chances to get the job. There is nothing worse knowing that you are qualified and finding out you messed it up because you didnt prepare properly.

Let me help you, and your chances will double to get the job, if you are qualified. I can guarantee you this.

Click here to learn more!

Did anyone see my Rockband 2 signal adapters?

I have managed to lose all my adapters to my Rock Band 2 instruments when I moved. I am sure I didn't leave them in my apartment and I have no idea where they are. If anyone knows, let me know! I am the most sad boy in the world right now!

Alan! Alan! Alan!

This gave me a good laugh.