X-Wing !

Sorry for not posting in a few days, I've had some things to do (translation = I was lazy).

Highlights of the last two days :

Hmm. Some lady called from our local department store this morning and told us that the carpet we ordered has come in and we should go get it.

We bought a new lamp for the living room.

Arsenal destroyed Newcastle United.

My tiny little nipples went to France.

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Since nothing of note has happened in the last few days, I shall delve into history and tell you about one of my early golden nerd days. I have told the story of how I got my nickname str33n, and so divulged some information about Ultima Online. Today I shall talk of another game that I did not mention.

I am a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge Star Wars fan. Some of you know this, and those of you who don't, I am watching Empire Strikes Back as I am writing this.

So being a Star Wars fan, and a computer gamer, I like Star Wars games. I've pretty much played em all but there is one game series in particular that was one of the highlights of my youth. The X-Wing series, and for me the game titles Tie Fighter and X-Wing Alliance in particular.

This series of games is about flying in space with your star wars space ships. The title of the X-Wing games comes from the fact that X-Wings are those rebel fighers in the old star wars movies. Anyway, playing these games was awesome, and in X-Wing Alliance, you could play on the internet against other pilots. I fell in love with it immediatly. It was quite cool flying against other pilots and winning duels. Turn those into clan battles and it was awesome.

So at the age of 13 and in the year 1999 I had to found my own XWA clan. I had never founded anything, so thinking of a name was quite hard. It turned out to be called Intergalactic Pilots Clan, and I have to admit, that wasn't one of the best names I've seen. Anyway, I actually managed to recruit some pilots into our squadron and we attempted to win fame and fortune with our brilliant rebel craft. What was odd, was that alot of clans used Imperial ships, which in the game engine were pretty much worse than the rebel ones. I didn't mind, I just shot em to bits.

This XWA phase of mine lasted a few years, it was a fun game, but so few people played it, that it didn't have the addictiveness rating of more modern clan games, especially something like Counter Strike.

What I'm sad about though, is the fact that Lucasarts stopped making X-Wing games after X-Wing Alliance, and to be honest, I find that a little bit weird, since they were some of the best selling titles Lucasarts ever had. I know that the games were developed by a small team called Totally Games and that Lucasarts only produced it and that there was some trouble between TG and Lucasarts at some point.

Regardless of that, I feel that Lucasarts has stripped gamers of some potentially awesome gaming experiences by not concentrating on games for the old movies. That's sad because the old Star Wars movies are better than the prequels, and therefore games made about that timeframe would probablt sell better.

Go to http://www.xwaupgrade.com/ for screenshots of X-wing Alliance. And to me, that game still looks awesome. It's from 1999 and the graphics are really good!


Tommorrow I'll talk about something more relevant.

The magical handyman 33xperience of '33.

Today I took the day off from school, or I suppose there was no school at all. But I wouldntve gone even if there actually was school. Who cares.

So I was planning on spending the day reading a book for school. It's about making speeches and being in front of a live audience. I don't think all if it is that useful for me, since I do think I'm fairly good at being in front of audiences, although I must say, after being in front a camera most of the time, it is an odd experience to actually have lots of people looking at you live.

Mrs. str33n had just left for her very own schoolday and I was still in bed, when I get a phone call.

Yeah,
uh-huh.
Okay...
Right, But I actually don't know that much about Halo 3.
uh-huh.
Sure why not.
Yeah see ya then.

So I was called from GameTV that I have to go do a gig at this release party in downtown Helsinki for Halo 3. Sounds like a cool gig. Interview some developers and play the game a little etc. I'll be going there later tonight. You'll probably be able to check out the party at www.gametv.fi later on this week.

Well, now I had my mind on everything else except the damn book about speeking etc. So I got up and decided to go to the local hardware store. No, not the nerd-type-of-hardware; actual nails-hammers-and-saws type of hardware.

I don't think im a total fuck up when it comes to doing manly building things, I mean I built quite a few tree houses when I was a kid, and I liked doing it too. Heck I've fixed a few things in my car even. Sure technology is easier for me, but I believe I can get this stuff done.

So I bought this big mirror, and a couple hooks for our bathroom so the mrs and I can hang our bathrobes.

Even though I regard myself as some sort of handy-man, I hardly ever do things the way they're supposed to be done. Those hooks should be stuck to the wall with screws. Well, to do that, I would need to drill a hole in it, put that plastic-condom-like-thingy in it, and then screw the screw into that plastic-condom-like-thingy, aaaaafter which I could finally attach the hook.

Step 1. Look for drill.
No drill

Step 2. Look for screws.
Should come with the package.... no screws.

Step 3. Look for plastic-condom-like-thingy.
Yup, you guessed it, no plastic-condom-like-thingy.

So what now. Well I had some two-sided tape left over from attaching these small mirrors to our toilet wall. It is water-resistant. Maybe I can think of something. So after playing around with this two-sided tape, in other words cutting it to fit the back of the hook assembly, I fairly neatly managed to attach the hooks on to the wall of our bathroom. I applied some pressure to the hooks for about a minute, and now they're really well stuck there. They can definately handle the weight of a wet bathrobe.

Damn I'm good.

So what's the point of today's blog, Brain?

The same as the point of every other blog, Pinky!

There is no point!

Happy Monday!

Howdy!

I'm wasting my time at school right now. Yup, you heard me right, im wasting my time here. It's time for our very useful computer classes and we're going at snail-speed, so that every-single-person understands what's going on.

At least I found a good slot in my day to write my blog.

We're going though how to add clipart and drawings in Microsoft Word. It's very boring since I discovered the magical world of clipart when I was about 9 years old playing with my dad's PC at work.

The fact that those computers barely ran after I played with them is, at least in my opinion, quite irrelevant.

These days, these little toys in MS Office products seem so puny, after getting used to working with Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop. I can see how it's useful for people who just don't have the time, energy or interest to learn how to use PSP or PS.

---

What else have I got for you today? Well I skipped Sunday's edition of the blog because I pretty much had nothing to write about. Sure Arsenal won their game 5-0 but this isn't and Arsenal blog, and sure I did manage to stick my nose out of the house for a few minutes.

Well it's monday morning, I still haven't got alot for you.

I did marianate some Manchego-cheese yesterday since on Saturday we're having a party at our place.

I also had to clean the damn apartment since the previously mentioned mrs. str33n had invited one of her girlfriends, (No! Not that kind of girlfriend, sorry guys), to stay the night since she was visiting Helsinki.

Now at least in my book, it would be her job to clean the place, but no, I had to do it since she had work both on Saturday and Sunday. The guys reading this that live with women should know, it's impossible to do this cleaning thing right. Where the hell do I put her clothes? I don't know how to arrange them in the exact place they're supposed to be in, I don't know the difference between casual bra's and not so casual bra's and sure as hell don't know anything about pantyho's.

How the hell do you spell that anyway?!

Whatever, I'm off to learn how to place a really big letter in front of text. Wait, I already know how! zZZZzzzZZzZZZzZZZz

Risk, take it eaasy

Yours truely just woke up about an hour ago and as punishment for having fun last night with a couple guys, mrs str33n demanded a ride to work.

Well it's okay. Last night started with a brilliant idea. I had just watched Sideways on tv and felt like having some red wine. I know i know that's quite the cliché to get excited about wine after that movie, but I didn't care. So I msn:ed Janne and we started brainstorming. We came up with the idea of playing some boardgames and drinking some wine. Classic

It's quite un-finnish-like to drink wine, Finns usually drink beer or vodka over wine so I caught a bit of flak for the idea of having a wine evening.

Janne came over with a buddy of his who looks quite a bit like Captain Haddock from tintin. Thats actually his nickname ... I think ... sexy ^^. We decided to play Risk, and for those of you who aren't familiar with the game I'll try to explain it a bit. It's one of those games that takes forever to play to the end, kinda like monopoly. Risk is a world domination type of game, where each player is his own "nation" and tries to invade the whole world and battles are decided by rolling multiple dice, it sounds simple, and while it sorta is, for me at least it's very addicting. Maybe I just like the thought of being a mighty conquerer.

Since there were only three of us playing, it makes for a very long gaming session. We only had 4 hours of time to play but I was confident we could finish at least one game.

We opened a bottle of Pinot Noir, oh come one, it's what they really like in Sideways so I just had to buy it, and started battling.

I got off to a good start and was doing quite well, unfortunately Janne and Haddock seemed to band together a bit to take my empire down and that meant the beginning of the end for me. In my control was half of North America, parts of Asia, and the whole of South America and Africa. I tried some excursions into Europe and towards Austrialia but they didn't work and I was eventually driven out of North America and Europe by Haddock and almost totally crushed in Asia by Janne.

At this point I tried to ally with Janne against Haddock, and while the idea started out pretty well with Haddock losing some terretories, that treacherous wannabe-hitler suddenly betrayed me and attacked into my almost completely unprotected flank.

My troops were no match for his battlehardened little plastic men.

After this the whole game was downhill and my best friend turned out to be that bottle of Pinot Noir while I watched my lands get invaded turn by turn with Haddock and Janne battling for world domination between one another. Dammit!

Now while this may not seem that big a deal, it still gets on my nerves. Now I believe I have learned to cope with defeat a bit better than I have when I was younger, but for those of you who don't know me too well, i still dont take it too well.

Normal Finnish people don't have a very high competetive streak, I mean sure a lot of them want to do well in anything they do, but they're not like American men who have had competition drilled into them since age 5. Now since I was in an American school as a kid, I caught up with competition myself, and it hasnt left me. I MUST win in everything. This hasn't left a very good path in my wake.

For example I have had to change keyboards about once every two years just because I usually end up pounding them after losing pointless games of NHL 06 or Pro Evolution Soccer. After clanmatches that we have lost, I have demolished headset's and also my gamepads have received alot of damage. I have prolly spent on the better side of 300 euros on replacing broken equipment just because of my competetiveness.

Oh well....

At least I didn't demolish the Risk board. Although it did go through my mind.

More tommorrow

Its not zhi Germans, its zi Russians!

I've been talking about football (soccer) recently, and I have something related to say about it today as well.

I support London-based Arsenal Football Club, and have done so for many years. Some of you might be familiar with Chelsea FC which was taken over by a Russian oligarch named Roman Abramovich, who is one of the richest people in the world. He has brought the team a lot of money to spend on players and the team has done better on the pitch after the Russian came on board. Unfortunately, Abramovich's presence also has cast quite a shadow over Chelsea, since now the team has an unsavory reputation, and is generally not very well regarded amongst other team's fans. This is because Abramovich has quite a shady past since the collapse of the soviet union.

As an Arsenal fan I have watched this Chelsea mess from a far and have had a jolly good time with it. It's been fun to call Chelsea "Chelski" and watch as they spend ridiculous amounts of cash on petty ukranian wannabe-superstars (SHEVCHENKO!).

Now though, that time is coming to an end as a few weeks ago another Russian oligarch with an even worse reputation bought 15% of Arsenal FC. His name is Alisher Usmanov, and to say the least, he has a very unsavory reputation. I don't have the balls to actually recite all I have found out about this guys, since tens of blogs around the internet have been threatened with lawsuits from Usmanov's lawyers, just because they talked shit about the guy.

Now it might sound a bit hilarious but get this : a few years ago a journalist wrote a book about Usmanov's shady past before and after the collapse of the mighty Soviet Union. Usmanov was actually in jail for 6 years for crimes he did do, yet was later pardoned. Now this journalist wrote this book even though he was warned by Usmanov's lawyers. A year or two later, the journalist was shot and killed.

Spooky.

Maybe I should watch my back from now on too. Scary eh?

The funny thing is, these types of aggresive moves into international sports by Russian oligarchs is giving a bad reputation for Russia on the whole. That is a shame since I myself have a few Russian friends who are really great and from what they've told me about their home country, I would really like to visit it.

Football (Soccer)! Fuck yeah!

I promised myself not to write too much about my favorite sports or sports teams, but I just have to write a bit about one of them now.

I haven't always been the football fan I am now, to be honest, Ice Hockey and Basketball respectively were bigger priorities for me until a few years back. Now though, soccer (for you americans) has become possibly my favorite-spectator sport.

People from the US would probably disagree and counter that their sports are better in this or that way, but the cold hard fact is that english football fans (hooligans aside) are probably the best supporters there are. They sing the whole time the game is being played, they sing before the match, they sing after the match and to me that just shows how passionate they are about the game. Yet they still know all the facts about their team as well, they follow the proceedings intensely, if it's player transfers or whatever, they're vigilant.

American sports fans are different. Now don't get me wrong, there are a billion things I love about america, heck, even I speak english with an american accent, but for sports their passion is a bit different.

First of all American sports fans tend to switch their loyalties easier, I'm not saying that all of them do, but it seems that they start "rooting" for teams based on hardly no good reason. It's like when they live in new york, they love the Yankees, but unless they're not hardcore fans, their loyalties might easily switch if they move to the west coast or florida or something.

I just have to mention this, but I used the word "their" and "they're" often in that last paragraph by the way, why is it that Americans who speak this language as their only language have such big problems with grammar?! Pathetic, it's an insult to english that some kid from Finland has better grammar skills than 95% of Americans.

Back to US sports fans -> Second of all! Americans get so god damn caught up with statistics. "Oh, he's such a good player" says one guy, "naaah, his 'footupyourassandlovingit-procentage' is too low, he can't be good". Man it's annoying. I mean I love stats just as much as the next guy, but gimme a break with em already. Baseball, American Football and Basketball, each has like 30 different stat categories to follow. Ice Hockey has alot too, but not so much. You know why? IT'S A CANADIAN SPORT! If he can score, he can score, if he can shoot he can shoot, if he can pass he can pass. Who care's if this one guy can pass 164545,3456 times a minute while the other can manage only a feeble 164544,396 times a minute, "I mean jeeesh! What a piece of shit!"

Thirdly, most americans can't handle sports where things are not happening every single frame that the TV is producing. This is why they don't understand sooooccer. It's so slow and they only score once or twice a game! Yeah, but there has got to be a reason why it's the most popular sport in almost every other country in the world. And guess what?! It's not because those countries havent tried baseball basketball or american football! It's because it's simple enough for everyone to understand (Ball -> Goal = YAY!), and so alot of people can think of it on the passion side of their brains, not the statistic-orientated chewing-tobacco...chewing side.

Pah!

Some people read newspapers in the morning, I read my PC's startup texts.

Yay I get to write something new today. Yesterday I opened my blog telling you about the origins of my nickname, and the name of the blog itself. I also mentioned something about my reading hobbies and kept on babbling mindlessly about computer games.

I considered writing about one of those things to you today, but I thankfully realised that maybe reminicing isnt always the answer. So i'll tell you about my great morning

I woke up at around 9 am today, and started my morning ritual, which I try to do regardless of where I actually have to be in the next hour or so. I walk straight to my PC and start to bathe in the mindnumbing agony which is the boot-up sequence. I mean, once you have had the same installation of windows running on your computer for more than two years, your computer will be slow. I hate formatting... even if it would actually take only a few minutes. WHY CANT THIS START UP ALREADY?!

While my pc was loading I head to the kitchen and grab myself an energy drink. Here in finland, if you're a serious nerd, you can't be caught drinking anything other than Battery. So i happily pop the can open and dig in. The wonderful feeling of this piss-colored beverage running straight into my stomach engulfs me, and for a moment I forget all about being annoyed about my pc's slow startup.

And finally, the computer has actually managed to turn on windows, so I type in my password and try to open my browser, clicking way too many times on the icon, actually so often that my cursor freezes up. But i forgot that at this point the computer still takes a few minutes to realise that it's job is to do what i tell it to. See, it wants to load msn messanger, and for some reason it takes 2 minutes or more to do that. Why does everything microsoft produces stink of pure uselessness? You know, sort of like a lada.

Okay hey, my cursor moves again! Oh right, now it wants to load the browser up 14 times since i clicked that icon so often. Dammit, more slowness. Okay great, i've spent close to 10 minutes of my time just trying to get to surf the net quickly before i leave for school. I have to leave in another 10, crap! I dont have time to read em all.

Okay okay, yay, I now have succesfully shut down 13 browser windows, leaving one for use. Off to the first of my many morning-reads. http://www.arseblog.com/ is my opening site. Since im an avid Arsenal FC fan (it's a football team, you know, soccer) it's nice to start my day with the writings of someone who actually wakes up alot earlier than you, just to write something about football.

Now after reading arseblog I turn to blueshirt bulletin which is currently reporting on my favorite ice hockey team's progress. These guys really know what they're doing, so it's always a very informative read.

Jeebus christ! Time's up, i should already be in my car. Hurry hurry hurry, oh wait I forgot to dress too!

Okay, this wasn't the most informative post, it was just my morning today. By the way, I left that battery can open my desk for the whole duration of my schoolday. I return home to realise I only took one sip of it. Brilliant... maybe janne will drink room-temperature-warm battery.

Here goes nothing, maybe It's a trap!

Okay, to start off I'll explain the name of my blog. I've had this internet nickname for a long time.

*image fades and bubbles into a flashback scene*

It's 1998 and xmas-eve, that magical time of year here in finland, snow is falling from the sky, the streets are devoid of life and everyone is in their warm houses eating christmas food and having a good ol' time. Maybe you'll even go sledding down the nearby hill and try avoid hitting trees. Well maybe it's like that in the rest of finland, but xmas weather in helsinki is slush sleet and shit. So being outside is the last thing on your mind.

Aaaaaaaaanyway. I was all of 13 years of age, and had just unwrapped a great xmas present. Now I must remind you i'm quite the nerd. So what do I find under the wrapping? Ultima Online! A computer game. And not just any computer game, its a MMORPG, the first one ever. (if you've heard of world of warcraft, yeah, turns out wow isnt such a new idea after all, mmkay?).

Happily i forget all other family functions, and zip at close-to-lightspeed to my room. Shut the door and start installing. After what seemed like forever (patching a mmorpg game with ISDN wasnt a joy to behold), I got to create my very own little character. I just have to name this little character and i'll be on my way to slay some chickens and so on.

By the way, go to http://www.imanewbie.com/ for excellent UO comics.

Now I did get another intresting christmas present that day, a book. This book started another hobby of mine that continues to this day, but that'll be a story for another day. It was a star wars book that takes place 7 years after the battle of endor.

Battle of what now? Yeah if you've seen the Return of the Jedi it's that big cool space battle you always loved, and had those annoying little furballs called ewoks in it too.

So it takes place after the movies. Luke is a jedi master and has these jedi students. One of them is called streen.

BINGO BANGO!

Well, i didnt actually read the book the same day and find that character in it, i just flipped through it and noticed someone called Streen, and picked the name from there.

*Image fades and bubbles again, this time to the YEAAAAAR TWWWWOOOOTHOUSAAAAAAAAND*

So i've played UO for over a year now, and I've played with the my character Streen. Well now it was time to try a First Person shooter game, called Delta Force 2!! Now this game was awesome, huge landscapes and firing at other people in multiplayer action via the internet was a new experience for me. But hey, i needed a nickname for myself. And being lazy as i am, i picked Streen again.

Now approx. two weeks after that I realized that i wasnt leet enough. (Leet = Elite, also written l33t, 1337). I had noticed that alot of people substituted their normally written nicknames with numbers and other funny signs, so I changed the way my nick was spelled to $tr33n. Now don't you think that's just über cool?

*Image bubbles and fades again. This time to the present day*

The dollar sign was a bit too much however, and over the years the nick has evolved into its current configuration. I took the $-sign off and just substituted it with a regular s. Oh, it's also a LOWER-CASE "S", so dont screw it up. I kept the 33 in the middle instead of having E's there tho.

And so I am now called "three three" by my finnish-speaking fans in the Call of Duty - scene. CoD is a computer game btw, if you havent guessed, and the reason I have fans is because I am a commentator for a finnish tv-program that broadcasts computer game matches played between even bigger nerds than me.