The wheels on the Bus go KERRAANNG!

As you know, I take the bus into work in the morning. Usually on a Thursday morning, I catch a slightly later bus, allowing me to sleep in a bit after a BBB. Today started off as usual, and I decided to catch the 9:02 bus. There were about 20 kids of about 7-8 years old there too, obviously on a field trip and they had a bunch of 4 adults supervising them. "Great," I thought, "I'm gonna be standing up with a bunch of loud kids." (Such is my humor of a morning.)

To my surprise, I found a seat and another adult sat next to me. Everything set off as normal, until we got to Vågmästareplatsen, where I actually used to live. At this point, the bus leaves a bus-stop and has to cross a lane to get ready to turn left.

I was in "screen saver" mode, as I usually am on this trip, but in the corner of my eye I saw a red van drive by. At this point, I also felt the bus start to pull off and swing over to the left.

You know sometimes when you get that "feeling" - that instinct that you need to ready yourself for something? That happened to me. I put one hand on the back of the seat in front of me and thought, "Well, this ain't gonna be...."

BANG!

I don't know whether the bus driver was just distracted or plain stupid, but he sure traded paint with the van. Everyone was thrown forward of course. As mentioned, I was in a ready state, so I more or less stayed where I was. There were a bunch of people standing up who did an impressive Human Domino impression. There were also kids at the back who were standing up, faffing around, talking to each other and their guardians who suddenly fell down. Lots of gasps and then a few kids starting to cry.

After everyone realised what had happened, the kids found that they were actually OK - just a bit shook up of course. The driver of the van was a woman in her mid-50s and was on a warpath. When a Swede talks quickly, I tend to lose the actual words, but I could make out "Jävla" and "fan" a lot (Swedish swear-words which would be equivalent to the F-word and such in English).

After we decided that the bus driver and the van driver were going to have to exchange insurance details and all that stuff, we all got off the bus and I got on a tram instead.

So, no caffeine needed to wake me up this morning!

Autumn is around the corner

This is a sure sign that summer is over - golden leaves on the trees. It was a beautiful day today, sunny and quite warm, but you can feel a chill in the background and the trees know it too.

The turnaround for my Xbox was two weeks in all. It's now working fine and it sounds different too, so the fan and heatsink have certainly been changed. Also, the Bike pack has been released for Burnout Paradise since Thursday, so I've been giving that a go too - they've done a great job integrating motorbikes into the game, actually. Also, there are weather conditions (namely mist, fog, etc) and a "day and night"; some races have to be taken at certain times of the day. Great stuff!

We've moved office at work too. The new offices are over two floors so there's a lot more room for us all to fit in. It's looking great, albeit a bit "sterile" at the moment; but that's just because it's newly finished and we need to add colour here and there through photographs and other stuff. Definitely a nice move though. Plus it takes me the same amount of time to get to work - about 20 minutes, involving a 15 minute bus ride and a short walk to the front door.

Making Failure as Painless as Possible

Well, I have to hand it to Microsoft's XBox division. Having been plagued by the Red Ring of Death, they've tried to make it as easy as possible to repair people's machines.

First of all, you register your 'box (if you haven't already done so), and they know from the serial number that it's still in warranty. Then, you fill out a quick Hardware Failure sheet. Then they inform you that they will send a flatpacked box for you to put the Xbox into, and a link to UPS's site to print out a special label that you put onto the box. Once that's done, you either go to your local UPS Drop Off Point, or phone them to get them to pick it up from you. Simple!

The only problem is time - there's a couple of days that go by while you're waiting for the box, then apparently it takes 2 to 3 weeks to repair/replace and return the 'box to you. That's a little inconvenient, but at least they've tried to make it as trouble-free as possible.

I've been out of sorts for the past couple days too. I don't know what it is exactly, but I think I may have a bug of some sort. I was knackered on Saturday and I put it down to the night of pool I had with Slaygon. But it didn't clear; Sunday and yesterday was like walking through treacle. I actually went to bed at 8pm last night, albeit to just relax and read. When the lights went off, I immediately fell asleep. I feel a lot better this morning, so hopefully the worst of it is over.

The internet connection seems to be stable enough now, so I'll atempt to transmit a show after two weeks' break. It's been a strange couple of weeks, relaxing on a Wednesday rather than talking into a microphone, but I'm looking forward to it!

Technology Hates Me

It's been an eventful week this week, for all the wrong reasons. First of all, we've been noticing that our satellite TV reception has been steadily degrading, to the point that sometimes we get 0% signal on the status screen. So I phoned up Viasat and apparently we're within warranty, so it's a call to the local people who installed the dish in the first place for them to come over and tweak it. Skitz tried to help me wobble the dish around to see if it was just an angle problem, but we couldn't get anything more out of it, so it's going to be a cable problem methinks.

After the fiasco of my router deciding to give up last week, we've found that there's something more sinister going on. My Xbox kept logging out of Xbox Live at random times, and freezing in the middle of a game, but I thought it was just a WiFi thing and I was going to tweak it this weekend. But when I was trying to get ready for my radio show on Wednesday, I discovered it was a lot worse than that. Every time I started the stream or even just loaded up the IRC chat window, after a while the modem dropped the DSL connection for a couple of minutes, then logged back in. A panicked call to Tele2 support five minutes into when my show was supposed to be broadcast confirmed the worst - the support guy was also sending data down the line and it was regularly disconnecting. He ticketed a support request for me and engineers should fix the problem "within 48 hours" (which is this evening). Fingers crossed that it's just a quick fix.

The Xbox freezing, on reflection, should have warned me. I thought it was just that the internet connection was going down, and the game coding didn't know how to handle it. But NO. Last night it froze again, I rebooted and got... yes... the Red Ring of Death. (This was when I was trying to play the new Bionic Commando game, by the way. The short time I got to play it, it's great!) Specifically, it's three red lights on the ring on the front panel - usually they show which joysticks are "logged in" to the console, but these turn red if there's some sort of problem. The 3 rings (top-right quadrant missing) means "hardware problem" and it also means you have to send your Xbox off for repair. So, that's another thing that I have to do over the weekend.

Three technology-based things going wrong in one week. Oh joy.

Bionic Commando Rearmed out on Xbox 360 tomorrow!

One of my All-Time Favorite All-Time Games of All-Time™ has to be Bionic Commando. It was released in 1987 as an arcade game by CapCom, and released later that year on the Commodore 64 (along with other platforms). I loved playing the arcade version at my local amusement arcade, and I even went out and bought the Disk version for my '64 - pretty damned good conversion too!

Well, I've been waiting for the Redux versions for a little while. There's a whole new 3D version coming out on the NG Consoles (Xbox 360, PS3) soon; but, as a taster, there's Bionic Commando Rearmed, a re-imagining of the original arcade game. It's in faux-3D (i.e. slightly 3d ish but played as 2d) and it looks shit-hot... and it's available on the Xbox Arcade from tomorrow, Wednesday 13th August 2008! (I don't know about the PS3 version unfortunately, check your online thingy, whatever it's called, if you've got one of those.)

I for one will be using some of my Microsoft Points to unlock the full version of this baby. If you know which game I'm talking about, do it too! If you don't, download the Trial version anyway and see what REAL action games should be about (i.e. the 80s ;)).

When Technology Goes Wrong... and then Right

Kablooey!

That's the imagined sound that my Belkin ADSL router made on Tuesday, while the missus and I were at our respective jobs. In one way, I was glad though.

I had bought myself a Wireless Network Device add-on for my XBox 360 (the official one, not a third-party make). However, when I plugged it in, it showed a red light and that was about it. Last Monday, I decided to phone XBox Support and see if there's anything I was doing wrong. Unfortunately I wasn't - thanks to the helpful advice from the support guy, we found that it was my poor old Belkin, that I had had since 2003 when I was still in England. I shouldn't be surprised really, routers have grown a little since then.

So I was uhming and ahing as to what to do, when the Belkin made my mind up for me, by fizzling out rather unceremoniously in the middle of the day - something we found when Linda tried to wirelessly access teh interwebs through her laptop.

I reconnected the Speedtouch that actually came with my Tele2 internet account, and quickly realised that, although it doesn't have WiFi, it's actually a damned good little router. So I went to On/Off and bought a Netgear wireless access point, hooked that up and everything seems to be back to normal. The XBox's wireless device definitely liked it a lot more. I switched on, put the right password in, and we were connected almost immediately. Some of my online chums started sending messages almost immediately, along the lines of "bloody 'ell Boz, we thought you'd sold your box!", as I haven't been online since moving.

We had the SLAY Radio Gathering last weekend, where listeners of SLAY Radio come to Gothenburg for a general get-together. This was the fourth year running (always on the first weekend in August) and it's just as enjoyable. Personally speaking, it's good for me to be able to put faces to some of the listeners that I transmit a show for. It's good for the listeners to meet each other, too, so that they know who they're chatting to on IRC. The Gatherings will be going on for as long as they're popular, so there's definitely one next year!

The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round

After one has been travelling on any form of transport for a while, one notices the "regulars" that enjoy(!) commuting. I am starting to notice this as I bounce around on the Number 25 bus to and from work every weekday. Because it's half-past silly in the morning -- and because we're Swedish -- most people keep to themselves, quiet as can be with a slightly distant look on their face. However, some people stand out more than others because of certain foibles or mannerisms they have.

Every now and then, I'll return to details any new characters I chance upon; however, there are three (or, technically, four) that I have noticed.

Mr. Blind-as-a-Bat. Even though he wears glasses, he takes them off and holds his Metro about 5 centimeters from his face, squinting like Mr. Magoo and taking ages to read any one article. He usually gets on at my stop but doesn't stand up until the bus has stopped - presumably because he can't see the number until it's right in front of him.

The Turk. This guy plays his music a little too loud, so you hear the high frequencies of ethnic Turkish music coming from his iPod. I have no idea what he looks like; I only know that he sits towards the back of the bus on the left-hand side. If one sits within 5 rows of him - which I have done on numerous occasions - one can hear that annoying tinny sound of someone who's listening just a little too loud. Not that I have anything against Turkish music per se, but it kind of loses something when you have to listen to it second-hand.

Miss Bullhorn and Miss Tired. These couple of giddy girls get on the bus before me, but I know when they are there (along with just about everyone else on the bus). Miss Bullhorn, obviously, talks at her friend in a loud voice, usually about telephone conversations she's had the night before. She has a bad case of the guztuhs (see below). "Hon säga till mej, 'blah blah blah', och så säga jag till henne, 'blah blah blah'..." is the usual thing you hear (with actual "blah"s in there); at the same time, her friend is saying "'A... [yawn]... 'a... [yawn]... 'a... [yawn]" ('a is Swedish for "yeah", it's a shortcut for ja), she's either bored out of her skull or she's been partying too hard the night before. My guess is the latter.

So, three examples of people on the Number 25 bus. Feel free to share your regulars in the comments below.

*guztuh is a word from the Midlands (especially Leicester). It's short for "goes to", which actually means "says to". Can also be just guz = goes = says. For instance, a Leicester person would say:

"She guztuh me, she guz 'Eh up Shaz, are ya gooin down pub tonight?" And I guztuh 'er, I guz 'Nah, I ain't got no moneh'."

"She asked me, 'Pardon me Sharon, are you frequenting the public house tonight?' And I replied to her, 'No, I seem to have a lack of funds.'

Even if it should be in the past tense, it's still used in the present.

Back to Work

Linda and I have just enjoyed four weeks' vacation from work. It's not unusual for Swedes to take this many weeks off, unlike the UK where most people would take a maximum of two weeks off, maybe three, in one go. Anyway, most of the time we were fixing the new house up; finishing off painting, going to the Swedish Place of Worship (IKEA) for more furniture and so on. We also enjoyed visitors coming over for a barbecue, and we went to Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen for a short stay. It's a beautiful city actually, well worth a visit. If you are a Facebook friend of Linda's, then you can view some photos here that she took. Otherwise, click here to see my copy on a web album.

We decided to take the time off now to avoid conflicts with work calendars. There is a phenomenon every year where the Svenssons take a long (four-ish week) vacation toward the end of July, and effectively Sverige AB (Sweden Ltd.) closes down. Lots of small shops, restaurants, cafés and indeed, sections of the government itself, go on hiatus for the vacation duration. Läppstiftet, the skyscraper in which I work, is like a ghost building; hardly anyone is around and the café and restaurant on the ground floor is closed for business.

There is a similar thing in England where most Brits go on holiday at the end of July, but it just seems so much more noticeable over here.

Also, this summer season is when lots of roadworks are performed. A great idea in principle, but I think Sweden has forgotten the hoards of tourists they get! Sweden is a lovely country to visit, but because of the Jante Law (of which I will comment on in another blog entry one day), your typical Swede won't admit to it. So, they close roads off and suspend some tram and bus services, leaving Mr and Mrs Tourist scratching their heads, wondering where the tram is (according to their tourist map) and wondering what the strange Swedish sign says on the platform.

Yes folks, Sweden can be a quirky place. Wouldn't change it for the world though.

Newsflash: Concentric Circles Eminating from Glowing Red Dot

Just read this startling news from The Onion's video network:


Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot

Waste-to-Hip Ratio Extreme!

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Originally uploaded by bdaywans

There I was, surfing teh interwebs as one does, and I found this peach on Flickr.

It took me several minutes to return to planet Earth.

Settling in

Things are going pretty well with the after-move mayhem. We're unpacking boxes as quickly as we can, but of course it takes time. At least most of the rooms are livable in. Last Thursday I had a day off; the sofa was delievered, the satellite was installed and the security alarm was activated. We also indulged in a big plasma TV so we can watch satellite TV and play my XBox on it. The next thing is to connect the XBox to the internet - either by one of those wireless gizmos, or I might feed a cable down to the DorkDen.

The DorkDen™ is the name given to my basement room by Wenchie, which is a great name! It's small (because the rest of the basement has a shower, sauna and laundry room) but we've managed to fit quite a bit in there. There's a computer desk on one wall, with a desk big enough to fit all my radio stuff on. There's also a sofa and TV unit so I can chill if Linda's watching something upstairs.

I transmitted my first show on Wednesday, using Patsy, my new PC. Everything worked fine, even though I hadn't actually performed any test transmissions. This was all made possible by the fact that Tele2, against all odds, installed ADSL in two weeks! It was actually switched on on Thursday (the same day I was off). I guess because I was anticipating the same deal as last time, when I moved into the flat, that it would take a while. But now it seems that, because I'm not "apartment scum" any more it happened quicker. It also helps that the telephone switch is right outside our front fence!

We've done the big shopping run to IKEA, of course - twice now actually. The desk in the picture, with the new bin and filing system, are courtesy of our Swedish flatpack company, of course, along with lots of other little bits and pieces for the kitchen.

I was off from Monday to Wednesday this week with a cold. I guess the stress of moving and stuff caught up with me. Linda had the same thing the week before and had to take the rest of the week off from Wednesday. At least we've got the "summer cold" out of the way now!

People are unreliable

BAH!

That's all I can say... Big Eddie let us down by phoning Linda up the week before last, saying that he couldn't make it because of other work. That left us in the lurch somewhat - so we decided to buy some paint and get on with it ourselves.

It won't be finished in time, however. But we have to remind ourselves of the old adage, "Rome wasn't built in a day". The living room is nearly done and, touch wood, will be finished in time for the move. Then we can tackle each room after moving in. It's not as if the house was falling in on itself after all.

We christened the house last weekend, actually. On Saturday, my friend Robert came over to help me fill in the dreaded Tax forms (I closed my business down last year, so I had to report on it in this year's accounts), and afterwards, we joined up with Linda and Kenneth who had been painting throughout the day. Robert and Cicci had bought us a barbecue grill as a wedding gift, so we tried it out of course! After some rather fine flintstek (pork steak) with potato salad, we plunged into the jacuzzi that is in the back patio of the new house. Ah, bliss! And we had to try out the sauna as well. I can see us using those two contraptions quite often through the summer! And the previous owners told us there's nothing better than seeing the freezing cold New Year in than a bottle of chilled champange in the heated jacuzzi - we will certainly be trying that.

The old apartment is just about ready for moving now - there's a load of boxes lying around with the "last moment" stuff remaining, like my PC. Tele2 are unfortunately dragging their heels again witht he broadband transfer, so for some reason I still have broadband here at the flat (even though I asked them to start transferring it a week ago). That's ominous...

Other than that, nothing exciting to report... moving house can't be called "exciting" really, can it?!

Getting the Key

Over the past month, things have been progressing with Operation: GöteBowness. We have moved Linda's stuff into a storage facility (except for her clothes and essentials of course), and she and I are now in the flat.

Next Tuesday is the Big Day where the keys are signed over to us. We are going to the local bank, signing some papers and then the previous owners will take us over to the house to explain a couple of things to us; for instance, we have an online security system, so we need to know how to set the code so the security guys don't come in the middle of the night thinking there's a robber! All the little things as well, like the heating system, where the telephone / television points are, how the remote control on the shower works (no, really!) and all that malarkey.

Big Eddie, the father of one of my colleague's girlfriend, is also hopefully coming on that evening too, to check the place out and give us a quote on decorating the place. He will be decorating the bedrooms and living room. We are set to move in on Saturday May 10th, with a little help from friends and colleagues; so it should be relatively smooth. After that, there's the unfortunate nightmare of cleaning the old flat (including Polyfilling and repainting the living room), but we're going to get a professional company in to do the cleaning for us.

Spring has sprung here in Gothenburg as well. It's not too hot but nice and sunny at the moment. Pity we'll be busy most weekends and working in the daytime!

ARGH, Warehouse is Closing Down!!!11!ONE!

Pfft.

At the moment, because I'm living on my own for a short while longer, and because a number of my development buddies at work also do it, I go to Nordstan for lunch. There's a few places to choose from, but one frequent place is Warehouse. They do a good "Red Hot Chilli Burger" there. This is actually false advertising because this is Sweden and most Swedes don't "do hot", but it's tasty and, besides which, I'm digressing.

Four of us went in there this lunchtime and sat at a table. The waitress came up and asked if we were eating from the buffet (all you can eat for a fixed price, blah blah). "No," we said, "we're ordering off the menu".

"Ah," she said, "we don't have a menu any more, just the buffet for a while longer, because we're closing down."

We sat there in collective gobsmackisation (for wont of a word that actually exists). One of our frequent haunts - which is pretty packed just about every lunchtime - is closing down! The waitress explained that the landlords - Nordstan I guess - have increased the rent by 140%, so I guess they wanted to get shut of them.

A sad moment in my gastronomic life. Now we're going to have to find another place to keep the number of options at a decent level. Or start making my own food.... nah.

What else has happened since I made an entry? Well, we get the keys to our new house on April 30th, but we might not actually move in straight away. Instead we'll get some of the decorating done, seeing as I have this flat for one month's crossover. Then it will be nice and new when we move in. It could mean that Linda lives here at the flat for that month too, if all goes well and she has sold her apartment by then, but that's no biggie.

Linda had her birthday party too - not too many people because space was short, but it was great fun and lovely to see friends and family - on both sides - again.

Operation: GöteBowness

Forgive the crappy title, but it was the only one I could come up with using my limited brain capacity. Anyhoo, the Bowness Train continues to chuffa-chuffa at full pelt - we have just signed a contract to buy a house! We will be moving to Tolered, a suburb in the Hisingen island in Gothenburg. Actually, it's not that far from where I live at the moment - about 5 minutes by bus in fact.

We were either going to go for something in Trollhättan or Göteborg, and we couldn't make our minds up (we've been thinking of moving for quite a few months now). Our minds were in Trollhättan (you get more house for your money, it's quieter but Göteborg is still accessible by train), but our hearts were in Göteborg (this is the city I moved to, and Linda has lived here for a lot of her life). In the end, Göteborg won our hearts. It does mean that Linda will have to commute for a while, but she's had to do it before so it's not too bad. It also means that I'll have to do a lot of housework and cooking because I'll get home first. Hopefully you'll have a mental image of me in a pinafore now, a la "I Want to Break Free" video by Queen. ;) We won't be moving in until the end of April, but that gives me time to pack my stuff up and throw out all the old crap!

So... engaged in December, married in January, bought a house in February... by July we'll have teenagers!

Also, we went on our honeymoon (in Swedish, smekmånad, a translation of which could be "fondle-month!") to Crete a couple weeks ago. It was a beautiful place, and spring-like for the first few days. It got a little overcast and rainy towards the end, but it didn't detract from the vacation at all. We stayed with Linda's mormor and morfar (maternal grandmother and grandfather) whose friends have a villa in Plaka, a small village near Chania on the North penninsula. Bliss! Pictures, for those interested, can be found here.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Mrs. Bowness!

Well, that's gone and done it hasn't it?!

"Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to December 23rd 2007...". This is when Linda and I had a little chat on the train from Gothenburg to Trollhättan, ready for our Christmas celebration. Our original plan was to get engaged before the year end (which we did on December 10), then get married on Linda's birthday in March. Our little chat, however, went along the lines of "can we wait that long," the answer being "naaaaah!"

We got to Trollhättan, and off to the local supermarket to buy the Christmas food. When we got to the shopping mall, we saw that the jeweller's shop was still open... so we popped in, found a pair of white-gold rings we liked and ordered them there and then! After Christmas, Linda subsequently sorted out the times for the ceremony itself.

We also decided that we did not want a big Event with pomp and circumstance; rather, it would be just us two with two witnesses - Slagge and Cicci in our case. I'm lucky in that Linda agrees that marriage is really down to the two people it's for.

Anyway, onto the event itself: Saturday January 19th 2008 at 15:15 was when we were ushered into the registry office in Gothenburg, in which we were read a very nicely worded set of vows (in English, by Linda's request I might add). We both said "I do" in the appropriate place and, less then ten minutes later, we were legally married.

Then, after checking in to the hotel (more on that later), we went to Heaven 23, a bar on the 23rd floor of Gothia towers, to drink champagne while looking out on the Gothenburg landscape. Very nice it was too!

Back to the hotel. We checked in just before going to Heaven 23, and we had ordered a room with the bröllopspacket (Wedding Package). The room had a chilled bottle of champagne waiting, with chocolate-covered strawberries and other fruits, rose petals on the bed and a "jacuzzi" style bubble-bath. We also had breakfast in bed the next morning. Bliss!

Anyway, back to the evening, as it was just before 6pm by this time. We had booked a table for four and we had a six-course meal, consisting of duck foie grois, veal, venison, creme caramel and sorbet (not in that order, and I'll have to come back and edit this when I have the proper names!). Beautifully done and very "posh" - lots of forks and knives and other weapons, washed down with copious amounts of alcohol.

All in all it was a beautiful - albeit seemingly quick - day; and thanks to the late check-out of 3pm (which was also part of the bröllopspacket) a restful Sunday too.

Here's a picture from the actual event (click on it for a larger version). You can also have a look at some more photos by clicking here.

So now we are Mr. and Mrs. Bowness. And if you read this Linda, jag älskar dig min ängel. Du är min fru och jag är mycket glad.

And so this is Two Thousand and Eight

The Christmas season has come and gone, so it's time to catch up with what has been going on.

First off, Linda and I went to England for a vaction early in December, to see family and friends. It was at my mum's house on December 10th that I decided to take the plunge: I got down on one knee and asked for Linda's hand in marriage. Thankfully she said yes ;)

It was great to see the folks and some of my closest UK friends again, as it had been a year since I had seen most of them. That's one of the bad points of living in a different country of course; but Sweden isn't that far away and, in an emergency, I could take a flight that would take less than two hours. Plus with all this internet and new technology, we all keep in touch in one way or another.

Christmas was spent in Trollhättan with Linda and a couple of friends, where we celebrated it in the Swedish style - a julbord on Christmas Eve (julafton) followed by opening the presents. Christmas Day in Sweden traditionally is when they meet up with friends and family, so all of the eating and presents are done the day before.

New Year was spent back in Gothenburg with a nice dinner party followed by watching the fireworks going of all over the skyline, which we could see from a hill we walked up. We took some champagne and toasted the new year in.

On the geeky front, I'm impatiently anticipating the release of Burnout Paradise which is released at the end of January on the PS3 and -- more importantly for me -- the XBox 360. A demo version of the game came out in the middle of December, and what a demo it was! They opened up part of the city (a small chunk but there's a lot to see!) and they even enabled some of the online functionality, so I've been playing the demo with friends and having a great time. The full game promises to be fantastic, judging by the demo. I've been a fan of the Burnout franchise only since Burnout 3, when I saw it on a friend's XBox, and Burnout Revenge was a principle reason for buying an XBox 360.

More news as and when!