2009 is coming...

...and as usual, people freak out. It might be to a lesser extent than in previous years (The crisis-mania makes people spend less even if they're not affected by it.), but it is happening nonetheless.

As I see it, it's no more than the end of an arbitrarily defined length of time. Sure, we went around the sun one more time, but there's lots of astronomical "milestones" that happen in defined times and we make no significance of them. It seems to me like people forget time is continuous while expecting this important jump from 2008 to 2009. The fact that given our time zones this happens at different times in different countries is even more depressing in my mind. That countdown is not really so important, is it.

Why then the big deal about new years? Here's a few alternatives I suggest, pick your favorite or come up with your own.

a) Any excuse to party works. People like partying for no reason, but they love to party if they have a reason to do so.
b) Some people have had a really bad year and they'd like to move on, forget about it and start from scratch.
c) Some people don't think about it and just get excited because everyone else does.

I think most people have a combination of a) and c) going on. Most people are stupid remember, so it's not really surprising.

People who fit in b) I can understand. I feel bad for them - I really do - because I've been in those shoes. Very uncomfortable shoes might I add.

So, what have we learnt? New years is a stupid exercise if you're a stupid human being, but it is a perfectly valid way of forgetting bad years and having a fresh start.

If you've had a tough year, I hope you have a nice celebration tonight.
If you haven't, I don't care what you do, just don't drink and drive or you might kill some innocent bystander.

Adding Value

The financial crisis has given the chance to some people who wear berets the chance to question whether capitalism is or isn't the way the world should operate in the future. Funny enough, they like to say it isn't, but when pressed for a better alternative they can't come up with anything better.

There's another group of people, these ones wear suits, but I suspect deep down they wish they wore berets. This group thinks financial speculation is wrong, and anyone who is in any way related to the financial industry is some sort of witch. It seems to these people that the only way to make money in the financial industry is either through witchcraft or insider trading.

Anyway, these people have all woken up from their lethargic existence with the financial crisis. They're popping up all over the place, complaining about how financial speculation does not add any real value, hence it's not productive.

I may be quite ignorant, or rather, I am quite ignorant, but still I have an opinion about this.

What's this talk of "real" value? These people who criticize the financial industry because of it's lack of added value should criticize most industries, as most value these days is either a label, a tag or an emblem triggering primitive feelings of superiority amongst the potential buyers of whatever it is they sell.

The value most objects we buy is so false that I have - and this is no joke - toyed with the idea of starting my own brand of pretty much anything these days, and I reckon it's actually not a bad idea. It may be a bad idea to do it now, in these crisis infected days, but in a few months time it might not be so bad. I'd also like to learn a bit of financial market witchcraft (I have no access to insider information sadly.), but I'll leave that for another post.

PS: I hope my opening statement offending beret wearers will inspire them to hang their berets forever and maybe even stop talking crap. It's a big goal I know, but I'm ambitious like that.

The day after christmas

Is kind of a downer isn't it?

You realize whatever is lacking in your life. More often than not it's relationship crap. Misc crap.

Good luck with the new years partying. Try and get drunk enough so that January 1st, 2009 is a massive hang over, overshadowing whatever depressing thoughts you might have.

PS: I'm not alcoholic. I can stop anytime I want to.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, or whatever it is you celebrate these days.

I'm amazed

At myself. Oh yes, I'm amazing according to me.

Seriously now. It's amazing how easy it is to write crap when there's no real limit to what you can say. I can write a single sentence, or as many paragraphs as I want. I can write about anything that pops into my mind. Quite liberating I must say. You should try it, you.

Ghost Town

I just watched this movie the other day.

It was pretty good. A little too fantastic for my taste; I had to make an effort to get carried away by the story. Gervais is incredibly funny, but his sad character is very similar to me, which kind of bothered me. Tea Leoni was gorgeous as always. I won't go into details about the plot. I don't want to ruin it for you.

What I can say though is that when the movie ended, I stared off into infinity (As the makers of the film probably intended.) and tried to analyze my own life.

The conclusion?

People suck. Why? Because very few people will actually do that. Most will get up from their seats and wonder whether they should go out to eat or stay in, or some other mundane crap. Sure, a few will introspect, but it'll be so few that I can confidently say that on average people suck.

Somehow it's viewed as naive or weak to introspect or reflect on any given thought when that's triggered by something as superficial as the end of a movie. I wonder why that is. Actually I don't wonder why. I just don't know why, but to be honest I don't care why.

So there you have it. You read it here first. Ghost Town isn't a bad movie and it can make you think about your own life (If you're able to accept that a movie (*gasp*) has just made you realize some things you had forgotten about).

Worst case scenario is you'll spend a couple of hours looking at Tea Leoni. I can think of worse ways of spending two hours.

Resolutions for 2009

My resolutions are very boring, but here they are:

a) Keep writing this blog
b) Keep my life interesting
c) Get at least one person reading all this I write.
d) 1152 x 864 (up from 1024 x 768)

Now that I've shared my resolutions with you, how about yours? Come on, nonexistent readers, share yours.

Another one of my favorites

Here I am giving readers away to the competition. Again. I don't know what's wrong with me.

Anyhoo, www.blowdog.com is today's link. It's a... miscellaneous blog. Maybe not as miscellaneous as this one, but close enough. It's much prettier though. A web developer, I'm not. I'm also not a professional writer as you might have noticed already.

Well, back to blowdog. It's slightly car-centric, but very nice reading nonetheless.

English Russia

Ok, so I probably shouldn't talk about the competition, but this blog is really good: www.englishrussia.com

It's funny. Go there if you want to laugh.

PS: In case you hadn't noticed, all the blogs in the world are competing to win the prize of "the bestestestest blog in the world". So yes, every other blog out there is my competition. I'm glad we cleared this up.

Picture of the day

Here's the picture of the day. Taken with a point and shoot, treated with a healthy dose of photoshop.

Love moves everything

According to many intelligent people (I should write intelligent in quotes, but I don't feel like it.), love is the main reason for everything from great economic success to wars. Love is behind it all.

I love my blog. I really do.

Now, let's see the results. I want some money now. Or a big war.

Subaru says "goodbye WRC"

What the hell happened? It's hard to know.

Maybe the financial crisis was the perfect excuse to quit, or maybe it was the real reason.

I don't think we'll ever know the truth.

I hope Petter will find a competitive seat for 2009.

Shazam

My first real post goes to Shazam. He should be honored. This doesn't happen often, actually it happens only once, since my next posts will never be able to be my first real post again. Does that make sense? Of course it does.

I'm not much of a music person, but I listen music most of the time. Contradiction? Not really. I like background music.

Anyway, check it out: http://www.myspace.com/shazamperth

I really like "Pool Party".

I feel useful now. I've done a service to mankind, or at least to the few who have visited this blog...yes.

Freedom

I think many out there will have started a blog at one time or another, only to find that after a week of writing it gets unbelievably boring. I have.

I predict that won't happen here though. Why?

a) This blog is anonymous. You have no idea who I am, and I like that. A lot. This means I don't have to censor myself to avoid coming off an ass. Which I am by the way.
b) This blog doesn't have a specific topic. Again, this means I can write whatever I want to. Anything and everything falls into the miscellaneous category if you nit pick a little.

So far, so good.