Stuff you eat, Potpourri

I'm going back to Sweden in less than a week (it's going to be fun, though admittedly a bit weird), so the Desert Drifter will again be Iceberg Drifter for a couple of weeks. I'm not entirely sure exactly how long it will be before I'm back, yet.

In the meantime, I'm taking orders for stuff to bring back. Popcorn dripping in butter, pre-flavored oatmeal, 43053740394 different kinds of donuts, big-ass ice-cream boxes, giant jars of fruit in syrup, caffeine-crammed soda and other things I'll undoubtedly miss are already packed.

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Just... insane

In the global news society we have today, where the current happenings on the other side of the world are just seconds away thanks to CNN, I cannot believe that the headline news on the local NBC-channel was "We had rain today in Arizona!"

There are wars going on, people starve to death, people escape floods and diseases are spreading all over the world. Every day, scientists make amazing discoveries, new inventions pop up everywhere and people's lives are saved thanks to the heroism of others.

But no, none of this is as worthy of being headline news on NBC as "We had rain today!" Un-be-liev-able.

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Just... insane, Lingo, Them gizmos

Apparently, it's called "outsourcing". Someone, somewhere, at some point, had the brilliant idea to move parts of a company's operations to another country in which the costs for each employee is substantially less compared to where it was in the first place.

I won't deny that I'm not aware of the economic reasoning behind this idea, but please, corporate big mucky-mucks, can't you see it's really screwing the rest of us?

A while back, I was personally affected by this stupid idea when I had reasons to call Customer Support at HP. I was in process of purchasing a HP Pavilion dv9000t laptop (and more to come about that whole mess at a later time), and had hit a roadblock that forced me to pick up the phone.

I was redirected through the phone lines of the world to... India.

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Goofy, Stuff you eat, Potpourri

They say true patriotism only shows itself when being somewhere else, and I can certainly affirm that thought. I've never been patriotic to my home country or even typically Swedish - I cheered for the hockey team when they won the Olympics last time around, but that's about it. The flag or anything else remotely connected to Sweden haven't really meant much to me until now.

The single fact that I have a Swedish flag in my room should be enough to prove my point, but I'm also starting to get a bit sentimental about pretty much any other Swedish things here. There's a type of candy called "Swedish Fish", and I bought a bag of them just because of the name. The thought of Swedish meat balls sound much more appealing than any other kind of meat balls, though I have yet to make them. I have the recipe and everything, but as long as I don't have any lingonberry jam, I'm not going to have any meat balls.

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Goofy, Potpourri

Have any of you heard of a movie for kids - and a TV-show - named "The Naked Brothers' Band"? I saw the movie on Nickelodeon the other day, and I have to tell you; the awesomeness of this film was the highlight of the weekend. How this fantastic piece of brilliance has eluded the rest of the world is beyond me.

No, no, don't get me wrong. I'm not being sarcastic and I'm well aware of the fact that it's intended for people like Brendan, aged 6, who was watching it with me. And I haven't regressed, either; I just think I viewed it from a different perspective than my young friend.

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