finally something to brag about

Given that Aras is getting married, Darius is getting married, Skaidrys is having a baby (or more precisely, his fiance is- but still, quite an accomplishment), and Knasas going to law school, I've had the feeling lately that my oldest friends are building their future. Whereas I, the last couple of years, haven't accomplished all that much. No car, no girlfriend, no house, and no career, and although my new laptop is sweet, I haven't got much to show for the last year of my life. Well, that's all about to change: see, I've been accepted to a master's degree program at Gothenburg University. W00T!! It's a two year programme in Global Studies, and I can specialize in a number of related fields: cultural/regional studies, democratization, poverty, development, conflict resolution, gender studies, communications... Best part is there's one year of internships or fieldwork in Africa or Asia to gather research for my master's thesis.

'allo gaius julius caesar! 'ow're finks? aw'right?

I've paused halfway through the first episode of the first season of HBO's Rome because I've notice all the Romans are speaking English with British accents. Someone want to explain this one to me? I understand that historically accurate representation is in now, thanks in part to The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto; with Mel Gibson going so far as to recreate the languages spoken at the time. And it's precisely because I've read that the creators of Rome strove to recreate the authenticity of Roman life circa 64 BCE (e.g. graffiti) that makes me question why they would anachronistically chose to have the characters speak early 21st century BBC English. I suppose the intention is for the Romans to sound more sophisticated (pffft). Does this mean the barbarians will speak with Australian accents? If so then I'm gonna turn this thing off and play some Warcraft....

Asian game show

Like they said in The Simpsons, in America gameshows reward knowledge, but in Asia they punish ignorance!

Lol

sweden is the dumbest country EVER (rant warning)

Got my tax papers in the mail today, and the Swedish government has calculated that I owe them approximately 5500 crowns, about 800 dollars. By some sort of ingenious accounting technique, those godd!@!ed primates in the tax ministry added up the income from both my jobs (which are already taxed every month) thereby putting me in a higher tax bracket even though one of those jobs is a dishwashing job that netted me a grand total of 8400 crowns for the whole year. If they take 5500 crowns from me, in effect I earn 2900 crowns from the dishwashing job, or about 400 dollars.

And where the hell am I supposed to get 5500 crowns from?! I'm flying out of the country in July for a wedding, and (hopefully) starting my studies in September. WTF is this !@!@?!?!?!?!

hungover/want to die

uuuuuuuuggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...................

employee christmas party. good times, was dancing like a moron for like four hours. so hungover now i might have to call in sick on monday. no way is the storm raging behind my face going to abate soon. i have this one coworker that has all sorts of stupid ideas for me to do when she gets drunk, and i always listen to her. at the end of term party in june she suggested i take a walk around the block to cure my headache. last night she thought it would be really brilliant for me to lie on back while she tried to pour red wine down my throat whilst standing. needless to say my favourite shirt is now ruined. but the shirt doesn't concern me now. want pancakes n bacon...

The annual post complaining about the weather

I've seriously considered changing the name of my blog to "where warm winds blow" in protest of the lousy weather Gothenburg's been experiencing since October. Far from being the frozen, Scandinavian port non-Scandinavians automatically assume Gothenburg to be, this city is actually more a big, fat target for lukewarm rain-loaded clouds. The worst part is that I can't blame this on global warming as I've already blamed the freezing, snowy winter of '95-96 on global warming on Dario blog. Also, when I named this site (which took a while), I took the title of a Darkthrone song which I thought applicable to my new environs. Therefore changing one word in the title makes the reference completely redundant, although I must say that listening to Darkthrone nowadays just gives me a headache. What the hell was I thinking when I downloaded that crap?!

A beautiful and expensive paperweight

Not having written anything for two months, I have a feeling this latest entry is going to be somewhat anti-climactic. After three days of frantically searching, I finally found a mobile phone service provider that will actually give me a subscription service with a phone that I want. Well, I did find the right provider and phone model on the first day but not in the right colour. I absolutely had to have the Nokia N73 in red, and I ended up paying an extra thousand SEK for it and it's worth every penny. The problem is now I'm not getting any coverage anywhere. DAMMIT! Which brings me to:

Weird Things About Sweden
One of the weird things about Sweden is that the government won't issue an ID card (via the banks) for you unless you show a them a Swedish passport. And it goes without saying that they won't issue me a Swedish passport either.