Nu är det slut

Jag har gjort slut med Bröllopstorget (BT) nu. För gott. För allitd. Ingen mer bröllopshets med gränslöst smaklösa brides-to-be runtom i landet. Nu är det jag och Tom och våra gränslösa to-do-listor som gäller. Det känns otroligt skönt. Befriande. Jag står på alldeles egna bröllops-ben och jag kan göra som jag vill!

Trots det kan jag inte låta bli att också känna mig lite ful. Till sättet alltså. Jag känner mig som en trotsig tonåring som trots år av kärlek och omsorg plötsligt flyttar hemifrån med attityden 'Jag tyckte ändå aldrig om er!'. Förstår ni vad jag menar? Man tar vad man vill ha, sen drar man.

Ack så skönt det är!

Why does time pass so quickly in celebrity land?

Time passes quickly. Even faster as you get older. But in Hollywood time passes with the speed of light.

I watch Paris Hilton leave jail and ask myself: 'Did she only get 2 days after all? I thought she was in for 40 something days?'

I read about celebrities dating each other. Couples who I consider as 'new items' have been dating for several years.

I guess it is true - time passes quickly when you are having fun.

Dead or alive

My love-and-hate blog 'colleague' Alex Schulman wrote an awesome list the other day: 'I don't know if these people are alive or dead'. Here is my version:

Sara Wedlund
Queen Elisabeth's mother
Peter Wallenberg Sr
Leila K
Lennart Swahn
Christer Pettersson
Katarina Taikon
Ingemar Johansson
Jokkmocks-Jocke
Hagge och Jocke Geigert
Ronald McDonald
Bengt Feldreich
Hans Villius

Mixed feelings

I have mixed feelings about this country. At the same time as I am proud of living in the sixth best city in the world and I am gladly exploring Helsinki, I just can't understand these weird people sometimes. Especially not the bus drivers. They must be apes - or different low-life species altogether. I don't even know what to say to make you understand how irresponsible they are. They drive like it's the last thing they'll ever do...and like riding a bus is the last thing the passengers will ever do.

This morning, the driver suddenly hit the breaks and caused a woman to fall flat on her back in the aisle. The driver didn't even notice. The woman lay there for quite a while before somebody asked her if she was alright and helped her up. The guy who helped her had crutches and could barely stand up.

Now, I am considering working remotely from somewhere else in the world. Even Montreal would do.

Detta med kvinnor och kärlek

Kan inte riktigt bestämma mig för vem som är fånigast, Linda Bengtzing, Magdalena Graaf eller jag.

Places I've never been

Here is a list of places that I REALLY want to visit soon (no particular order):

Amsterdam, Netherlands
Reykjavik, Iceland
Krakow, Poland
S:t Petersburg, Russia
Casablanca, Morocco
Marrakesh, Morocco
Prague, Czech Republic
Brno, Czech Republic
Zürich, Switzerland
Mumbai, India
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Budapest, Hungary
Istanbul, Turkey
Mexico City, Mexico
Lisbon, Portugal
Havana, Cuba
San José, Costa Rica
San Juan, Puerto Rica
Tokyo, Japan
Seoul, South Korea
Shanghai, China

If you want to go with me to any of these cities, just let me know and let's try to schedule a trip.

People I never were

You know, sometimes I really want to believe in reincarnation, because there are so many people I want to be. I want to be a female marathon runner. One of those who is size 0 and thus is so thin that she can just keep on running for ever and ever. I also want to be a Swedish chick without an ass so that I can wear high-waisted Cheap Monday jeans and still look good. I want to be married to Mark Levengood and Jonas Gardell - at the same time, and I want to be a belly dancer (or a stripper...or both) and a social democratic politician who kicks all greedy liberal and conservative peoples' asses.

Tell me, how many lives do we each get?

(Photo: Cheap Monday)

Evergreen

Sort of happy to see that green, our wedding theme color, is described by some as a 'trend theme color'.

Photo: Design Sponge Mini Trends

Play dead

While observing my colleagues, women and men in suits and serious faces, I can't help thinking that all of this - our very business-like lives - sometimes feels more like a game than anything else. We all follow the rules that have been defined for us, and when you think about it for a while, you realize that this game is by no means more real than the games we play as children. The incentives that drive us now are most likely the same incentives that made us smoke chocolate cigarettes and play doctor as kids. We observe and learn.

Take a good look around you. Eventually, this is what you'll become.

(Picture from Epica Awards)

I didn't write that blog

I love Stephanie Gayle's blog. Stephanie works at the Media Lab and just released a book: My Summer of Southern Discomfort.

Let me tell you about micro management

This blog entry is dedicated to all of you who have never had the pleasure of planning a wedding. There are times when you realize that you are completely and utterly losing it. You are focusing on the wrong things and driving everyone around you crazy by doing it. Here is a list of things that should serve as a warning sign for me and anyone else:

• calling the local store at the wedding site to ask how much grilled chicken costs
  
• searching the Internet for 25 baskets
• changing your mind regarding everything at least twice per day
  
• looking for a new perfume especially for the wedding

Well, let's hope it all goes well.

Londontown

Went to London straight from Stockholm last Monday to attend a workshop and some meetings. God, I just love that city. Especially Neal's Yard.

Had about an hour to spend on shopping and found some really great stuff: cool Erté art deco postcards, Neal's Yard Remedies' rose water for my mum, cheap earrings for myself, and a whole set of second hand clothes for Tom at Rokit second hand store (I want him to wear them for the wedding). Anyway, overall a very nice little trip.

So hip

Had my second bachelorette party last weekend. My friends Carolin and Andie surprized me by dressing me up as a drag queen and treating me to a Lebanese dinner and faaar to much alcohol. What can I say? Let me put it in a very American way: I am blessed.

It's like...

For a very Web2.0-ish shopping experience, try like.com . Shop based on images, color, shape, and patterns. The sky is the limit.

Let's bring our kids to the center

I guess sometimes even graphic designers make mistakes.

Delicious

Who would have thought that Nokia celebrates the Swedish National Day; and who would have guessed that they do it in a very unique way? Yesterday, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the lunch menu in our company cafeteria:

'Cheese and Swede soup'

My boss Phil saw my horrified look and explained that there are actually two kinds of Swedes: those that grow below ground and those that grow above.

Drunk Salaryman

My colleague Felice just got back form Tokyo and proudly showed me his new collection of cell phone straps: StrapYa's Drunk Salaryman. Aren't they the cutest thing ever?

I am Persian...miao!

The Persian comedian Maz Jobrani is so funny that even the non-existing Persian in me can't stop laughing.

More truths about Finland

Here are some more extremely objective (and for some reason traffic-focused) facts about Finland:

• Truck drivers drive just 1/4 inch from the sidewalk
• Traffic lights are always red
• Cars never stop at the zebra crossings
• Finns pee and poop in public more than other people
• Buses don't stop unless you tell them to
• In Finland you are on your own even when you are together. Even though somebody else has already waved for the bus to stop you have to wave too; preferably even more than that other person.
  
• Finns can't pronounce the word "widgets"
  

The art of being vain

Now, if you want to know what the vain modern world does to us stupid women, listen carefully to this story:

On the main screen of my new Nokia N-something there is a link: 'No cal. entries for today'. This feature has excited me so much that I've been bragging to my friends that my new phone is so incredibly cool that it has its own calorie counter.

-"Loosing weight before the wedding will be an easy task from now on! The Nokia S60s are superior."

Now, what I didn't tell my friends was that the calorie entry link seemed to be broken. It lead me straight to the calendar! I complained to my fiancé who kindly and carefully suggested that the problem might just be that "cal." actually stands for "calendar" rather than "calorie".

Now, how silly is that?!

Oscar night

Yet another one of my current favorite dresses. Oscar de la Renta, mi amor.

The love for mobility

Check out this list of wonderfully crazy Asian mobile phone applications, listed on one of my favorite mobile phone blogs, textually.org:

1. The Lie/Love detector

The "Truthful Calls" service uses a voice analysis system by Israeli company Nemesysco that functions as an emotion detector, assessing the level of honesty of the person you're calling.

2. Call yourself in the future

From Web services company CDyne, a Web-based app that allows you to call yourself in the future. Really!

3. Ghost detector

TV show tie-ins are becoming a frequent excuse for mobile apps. Mobile content development company Wiretown (started, appropriately, by two men with TV broadcasting backgrounds) have developed a paranormal detector for cellphones.

4. Car alarm

The "Silent-I" system not only sends an SMS to the car's own

5. Spy phones

An ordinary-looking mobile phone that actually doubles as an eavesdropping device

6. Halal verification service

An SMS-based service in Malaysia that allows Muslims to conform the halal status (which is to say "permissible" under Islamic law) of products.

7. Liquid wallpaper

Technically more of a user-interface feature than an app, but still innovative: the N702iS handset (developed by NEC, NTT DoCoMo and Japanese design company Nendo) comes with sensor-driven wallpaper that makes the screen look like a glass of liquid.

8. Send SMS messages and emoticons to your clothes

Uranium-Jeans has a line of "interactive clothing" that comes with embedded flexible micro screens that display images and scrolling text messages that can either be downloaded from Uranium's Web site or sent by SMS.

9. Camera dictionary

Camera Dictionary is a software app that allows users to scan English words using their camera phones and translate them to Japanese.

10. Mobile breathalyzer

Not sure if you or your driver has had one too many martinis? Use your mobile phone to check his or her alcohol level via a breath analyzer connected to the handset.

And a favortie future ap:

Ghost in the cell

Professor Kim Jong-hwan of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology wants to take the "genie in a bottle" concept and bring it to the mobile phone in the form of a software robot.

The "robot" would be something like a 3D avatar that would adjust itself to the characteristics of the cell phone owner.

När jag var liten kunde jag trolla

Jag älskar denna text, skriven av Jonas Gardell:

När jag var liten kunde jag trolla.
Jag kunde göra underverk, läka sår och
gå på vattnet, färdas obegränsat i tid
och rum, jag hade makt att förvandla
världen eller skapa en ny.
När jag var liten kunde jag trolla.
Det var innan de lärde mig att jag
inte kunde.

Den påminner mig om hur tiden och vuxenheten har en tendens att förvandla de mest kreativa och levnadsglada små själar till gråa, trista, menlösa medborgare.