JaranBlog

It’s been way too long since last time I pulled a prank on someone. Last time we wrapped my friend Bent’s office in plastic wrapping. This time it was Aleksander’s turn…

I’ve been subscribing to a feed from a site named TED for a few months now, and it’s been really entertaining.

The site hosts talks by many different people from all kinds of fields, anything from food experts to computer wizards. The majority of the talks I have watched so far have really brought up interesting topics, and topics which makes you think. These are indeed clever people, and they know how to talk.

Most of the talks are reasonable lenghts, which means they can be watched with your morning or afternoon cup of tea. The video that came down the feed today was about deep sea exploration and how major parts of our own planet are still unexplored, even if there are signs of incredible things down there. Highly recommended!

Last night I came back from a business trip to Sweden, exhausted and felt mostly like going to bed, but yesterday was the 29th of April - a date most console enthusiasts have been waiting for since many months - the official release date for the new Grand Theft Auto IV!

I had pre-ordered the game and was crossing my fingers on my way home that they had managed to send it out and that the slow-ass postal service had managed to get my package to my mailbox on time. And they had! So I barely took time to get my suitcase inside the door before I threw myself on the couch in front of the TV.

What a game! I got around 3-4 hours of game time last night and I simply can’t wait to play more. The good old GTA-feeling is back, and it’s feeling even better. The excellent storyline accompanied by smaller side missions and tasks, and lets not forget the beautiful graphics! GTA3, Vice City and San Andreas all took great advantage of the PS2 power when they were released back in the days, but it’s pretty clear the Rockstar developers have understood how to take advantage of the new generation of consoles as well. I remember that, in Vice City, I fell in love with cruising down the high way listening to “Mr. Mister - Broken Wings” in the sunset. San Andreas had several experiences like it, and from what I have seen of the graphics in GTA IV, I am sure there will be similar euphoric expriences. It’s not a coincidence that the engine used in GTA IV is named Euphoria…

Anyways, if you wonder what game to get for your console next you should not sit here reading the rest of this, but be on your way down to the game store!

Well, actually I am done… Run!!

We ordered a new computer at work this week, and two out of three boxes were delivered yesterday (the last one got sent to the wrong part of town apparently, and because Grimstad is such a huge city, it will probably take a day or two before it finds it’s way here).

At first, when we got the boxes, I thought perhaps my boss had ordered some special fish for a party or something. At least I would not think the box contained computer equipment!

I am starting to wonder if PS.no is running out of cardboard boxes Looking forward to see what kind of wrapping they have used for the last part of the shipment!

A few weeks ago a colleague sent me this comic at work. It made me laught, but it also brought a great idea for having a little fun with my dear co-developer, Aleksander:

My office is the one on the left… Of course…

During Easter, many geeks like to come together and play games and socialize with a few thousand other geeks, instead of tumbling down-hill in a huge snowball and eating chocolate. I’ve been there myself and it was great, so no pun intended.

Dagbladet.no just posted a cool high-res photo of the Viking Ship at Hamar, where The Gathering is held. Pretty cool, and you get a quite detailed view of what people are doing. So keep away from the naughty stuff and concentrate on the game, cause people are watching you!

I came across this post through TSS.com yesterday. This should set the standard for “at home sick today”-emails you send to your boss:

My immune system is being unkind to me again this weekend. My coughing fits had gotten so severe that my physician has seen fit to prescribe something unprecedented to the scope of over-the-counter medication.

Who would have thought that a moment’s respite from expectorating one’s own blood could find purchase in codeine-laced promethazine, the creativity flowing forth from one’s fingers like butterflies upon each keystroke? Every moment now transpires into an out of body experience, the luminescence coalescing freely from an LCD backdrop on a disembodied sensation, trying to discern the interpretive numina of the garbage truck ever-present outside my bedroom window. Flash. Flash. Lift. And it’s gone, further down the dark, to attend to another yet lonely garbage can. I can only weep at the significance.

The sum of my being is available over IM and phone and email, although it is unlikely that we will commune on the same plane of understanding until my medication has metabolized sufficiently out of my biological venue. (…which does not exist in my current frame of reference - the dangerous ramblings of Descartes loom ominously at the fringes of my attentions, all material existence is possibly a malicious manifestation of some mischievous higher power, or with some degree of enforcement of a supreme effort of one’s self epistemology, transgresses too closely to a soliptic weltanschauung of Rhonda Byrne proportions.)