Nothing much today. Just a couple of recommendations.

TV-series

Sherlock, a new take on the old detective. A British mini-series with 3 90-minute long episodes. Breathes genuine quality in a different pacing than what you're used to from both British detective stories and american tv-series. SVT1 showed first episode in Sweden last Sunday.

Pillars of the earth, another British quality production. A bit fantasy-esque minus all the fantasy. It's set in 12th century England and full of fascinating and captivating characters that each plot, dream and hope. It's not 'the guys in black beating the guys in white'. Swedish tv3 just ran the series, but it should be available on DVD.

Both of these series are very 'full' in that that each episode leaves you satisfied and with a sense that they have been made with a purpose instead of filling a season.

Fringe, this is X-files, but with a more warmer, human attitude. Very loveable characters.

House, this is one for the cynics. For those not familiar with the series, it's basically CSI with the human body as a crime scene. It's a medical show, but very unlike ER. The main character is misanthropic, coleric and does things his way. He's bitter but with a twinge of humour.

True blood, vampires in southern USA, mingling with other people but preferring to keep to themselves mostly. Warning though, this is an HBO series and therefore does not hold back on either gore or sex. It is more than that though.

Movies

I'm a guy with pretty generic taste in movies... I think. I appreciate a good action movie as well as the next guy, I don't balk away from blockbuster movies just because they're blockbuster movies, although here I will try to recommend a couple of movies that you might not have heard of.

The man from earth, this is NOT an action movie, at all. It's a very talk-y movie in a cozy atmosphere that asks the question 'what if'. I won't give away more of the plot than that.

Pandorum, this on the other hand IS an action movie and has been likened to Aliens meets Event horizon. I think one of those two movies is good and the other scary as hell but not supergood.

The Prestige, a Nolan-movie that at least I missed when it played at the cinemas. But that could have been me hiding under a rock or something. Nonetheless it's a very good movie about two rivaling magicians and of course there is a Nolan-twist.

Sorry not very many bile-filled rants today. I hope I might convince you to watch at least some of them and I'd be extremely happy if those were Sherlock, Pillars of the earth or Pandorum. Oh and a pre-emptive recommendation. On 17th of April begins showing Game of thrones. It's a high quality book-series that I hope and expect HBO will turn into a high quality tv-series. From what this rabid fanboy has seen so far, he has no reason to complain.

Sweden is once again in the icy grip of Jack Frost.

Goddamn it and fuck it all to hell, I swear I'll kick this frost-guy 250 years into the future.

'How you like them global warmings, punk?'

I'm not really that upset about the cold itself. It's this whole 'first melting the snow and then freezing everything again leaving exactly every millimetre of Peters otherwise miserable existance entirely encased in slippery' I don't come to terms with. Ice is cool on nipples and in whiskey, enough is enough all right?

Had a conversation with a currently incapacitated friend after a skiing accident in S:t Anton. It went something like this:

'Haha, sorry for not replying earlier, I was in the other room fetching another pillow. No I won't be heading out on saturday... I don't have the strength to be active for an entire day'

'No probs. Yeah I can relate to both taking forever to move to the other room and not being strong enough.'

I was setting her up for setting me up for an unpresedented punch-line. I wanted her to reply something in the lines of 'oh yeah, you were on crutches for 3 months back in 2003' so I could deliver the goods in an exquisite mixture of humbleness and selfdepreciation with this comedic geniality 'No Sara, I'm just fat remember'.

She never took the bait. Apparently I have better script-writers than the rest of the world. Fuck you all.

Yes, I'm a bit on the bitter side today. Really shouldn't be. My sister had her first baby yesterday and Lovisa,the baby, is really pretty, unlike all the other newborn lumps of flesh I've seen. Must have something to do with the genes. Before you all get your g-strings in a twist, she's my step-sister. And yes, my sister's really that pretty.

Another irrelevant study reported in the tabloids showed that Swedish women want more sex. This study is of course tailor-made to generate clicks on the webpage and to sell more of whatever that they're selling. Yeah the study was made by Pfizer. It doesn't take very much of a cynic to connect the dots. I'm over-qualified. I , however, want to make this irrevocably and perfectly clear: 'Swedish women, here I am!' Preferrably you're between 22 and 35 but I'm not picky in either direction. Lame? Yeah, but I'll be the one with all the hotties lining up outside my door.

Tonight I'm heading to bed early.

This is Commander-in-chief, signing out.

New year, new blog-layout, new posting frequency?

The background is from a trip I took to Kiruna in the northern parts of Sweden, it was something that meant a lot for me. My sister got married in the ice church at Ice Hotel. I chose this as my background because it's a stunning vista and more importantly because it's something I have taken very dearly to my heart. I hope that 2011 will be just the same, a stunning vista that I can take to my heart and keep forever.

Enough with sentimentals. I know that most of my readers only come here for my rants. I'm going to let you have some insight in my work-life. I work in marketing. Marketing for the Swedish branch of a large coorporation dealing in laboratory supplies and apparature. I'll share a few anecdotes.

Among other things we sell chemicals. One of our customers is a company manufacturing pharmaceuticals. Such companies are under strict regulations and need to audit the suppliers in accordance with FDA regulations. The supplier in question was a Polish chemical firm. After such an audit had been done we arranged a meeting between the customer and the supplier to go over what problems had been detected. We represented with the Product manager in chemicals and the Sales Representative handling the customer on our behalf. The supplier represented with the CEO and the on-site lab technician, both females in the mid-30's.

This meeting was held just outside my office door so I could hear exactly everything that was going on. It was one of those fairly akward meetings; there were a bit of language barriers, there were some cultural differences and the natural awkwardness that comes when someone has audited you and found problems. A very professional and courteous tone was being maintained though and there weren't any serious problems to talk of really. Everyone was very relieved when the audit had been reviewed by all parts and the tensioned lessened. The CEO then asks our Sales Rep if he could tell them a thing or two about our company. We do have a power-pointpresentation just for things like this, but unfortunately it's only in Swedish. So our Sales Rep shows the slides and translates on the fly.

However it bothers him to no end that he doesn't have anything to hand out or that he can't find the presentation in english, he feels a little bit unprefessional. But then he realises that with him he has a handout listing all our major suppliers in each and every field that we work in, fairly neatly presented. This puts him to ease as we work with high profile brands in every field. So he gives the two women the hand-out and they begin looking through it. He is just about to continue his presentation when the CEO interrupts him very calmly:

'I understand now why our figures for your region remain at such a low level, since under important chemical suppliers you have listed all of our competitors but not us'

This remains to this day the gravest faux pas I have ever experienced in my work life.

My other anecdote is about a customer that manufactures PVC. I read in the local newspaper that they had to close their plant, under penalty of 6million USD/day, because the Swedish work environment agency performed an inspection and found that they still hadn't fixed the problems that were discovered 6 months earlier. Apparently it was a problem with a vessel containing chlorine gas.

As a manufacturing company, by what reasoning is it correct to ignore the work environment agency when they come by and say 'Heya guys, you should probably take a look at this'. Do you just go 'Sure, sure we'll totally do that' and hope that they won't come back? Or do you reason 'What's the worst that can happen'?

I've studied chemistry, and I know that chlorine gas is toxic. I've also studied some history... and I know that they used that shit in two world wars! To KILL PEOPLE!

The world is a place where millions of bad decisions are being made each day fortunately they are outweighed by the incountable good ones. That's why I never become mad when someone makes one. It's when they start defending their bad decisions without a moment to reflect on their actions I go ape-shit.