Oh God He Is Alive?

Last weekend I didn't get around to writing an entry. I don't know why, so no need to ask. But et voila. Here I am again, alive and kicking. Probably to your greatest dismay.

So what have I been doing instead of writing here, you probably wouldn't ask yourself. Well, I'm going to answer it anyway, so just live with it. Short version: Stress. Long version: Stressing out over the bloody ridiculous amount of tests that we keep having, trying to uphold some form of social life and doing my best at breathing. Although the former doesn't leave much time for the latter. Right now I've just finished of a quite successful raid and am now rocking off to Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies. Oh, and speaking of music, most blogs I read tend to have some entries about music, so I'm just gonna go with the flow here and join in.

Right, in my younger years (ha, ha, ha) I never listened to much music. It wasn't that I hated it or so, I just never found anything that really fit me, so I ended up just staying away from it. It was first when a friend, although I'm sure it wasn't his intention, introduced me to Rise Againsnt that something happened. It kind of surprised me that I liked them, since that definately wouldn't have been the kind of music I would've seen myself liking. But I did, and who am I to tell myself to shut and go back to silence? But anyway, since then it just escalated and now I'm into most things. So, following here is a selection of artists/bands that I like.

MUSE

This band are my definitive favourites at the moment. They're different, but there's something oddly compelling about them. From the rythmic bass and drums to Matthew Bellamy's almost hypnotic voice. Now another thing I especially like about these chaps are that they actually sound fantastic live. Yes, I did just say that. Nowadays there's far too many 'studio bands' who sound great on their records, but once you hear them live you wonder what the hell they're doing. When Muse plays live the songs turn into a completely different experience, while still being the same. Okay, it's hard to explain, but listen to the same song both in a studio version and live version and you'll see what I mean!

Here's my personal favourite song by Muse, Starlight:

Alice Cooper

Right, so most of you with any sense of rock history probably knows who this guy is, but whatever. Despite the name indicating that it would only be one person it is actually a band, but the singer and frontline person being Alice Cooper himself. The band has switched members a lot over the years, so I'm not going to bother listing any of them. Being pretty much the creator of shock rock his texts are often quite bizarre and many of them play on the subject of sex in a both daring and perverted way. I guess what I like about his music is that he often sings about teenagers and the whole child-on-the-way-of-becoming-an-adult-thing which obviously applies to me and that he dares write bizarre texts without caring if it's appropriate or not.

Here's I'm Eighteen, I didn't find any real video of it so it's just pictures, but enjoy the song:

Rise Against

Right, so seeing how these were the first band I actually began listening to I figured they required a place here. I don't know exactly what made me fall for them, but I would guess that I just felt really home with their music. I just suppose that Tim McIlrath's coarse voice just has something that makes me like it (much like Alice Cooper). Apart from that they also have sort of an emotional bond with me, since I can strongly connect them to certain periods of my life since they were the only band i was listening to at the time. Anyways, before I get all too emo, here is a song for your enjoyment, Paper Wings:


Foo Fighters

So, another piece of rock here then. There's nothing remarkably exciting about Foo Fighters, I guess, but I like their music and that's enough for me. Dave Grohl (former drummer of Nirvana) has an amazing voice which fits their songs perfectly. The guitar riffs are good, the bass is good, the rythm is good. All in all it's a good band.
Here you can enjoy the official (and quite amusing) video of Learn to Fly:

Right, that's pretty much my favourite bands. Now of course there are other bands I like such as Queen, The Rolling Stones (and more recently Pink Floyd, you know who you are) etc. Pretty much all of the old classic rock.

Turns out there was no gaming debate today. Haha, what a dissapointment, eh? I just couldn't be arsed writing one today, so you'll just have to live with it. Tough luck.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this little taste of my musical life.

Nothing At All or The Gaming Addiction - It's All Just Fiction.

Okay, so maybe the second part of the title was a slight exaggeration, but it rhymed and sounded cool so I'll just go with that anyway.

This week's entry about what's been happening in my life is going to be short. This is due to the fact that I've had a week off from school. I know it really doesn't make sense, seeing how a week off school should generally result in going on a trip somewhere or at least doing something of interest. But I've done nothing at all. Now this probably makes me look like one of the most boring persons in the world (perhaps I am?), but I've always used short mid-term breaks like these to take some (hopefully) well deserved rest. A rest I definately need seeing how I once again have two tests in the upcoming week. So my week has basically consisted of general slacking, sleeping long and gaming. So, yeah, let's move on!



Gaming addiction, that's a word you hear quite often nowadays. We've all read about the young teenagers who waste their lives sitting in front of their computers, skipping school and neglecting their friends. And the one who gets to take the blame for all of this is gaming, and I don't think that's exactly true. Now, I can't deny the fact that there are people who play too much games, it is an obvious fact that these people exist. However, what I can say is that I do not think that gaming itself is the reason for this. Games are a great way to let your imagination spread it wings. In school you might be the tiny little kid, picked on by everybody, but inside a game you could be a mighty warrior, saviour of the weak and slayer of evil. So the reason why people let gaming take over their lives possibly lies outside of it. Be it problems with school or other things. Games are just the place where people escape to not have to deal with their own reality. Add to this the fact that a lot of parents are "afraid" of games and who's closest contact to games are when they tell their kids to go do something else, instead of actually involving themselves in their children's gaming, something that would help ease the tension many children feel towards their own parents when it comes to gaming.
So the villain is not gaming in this case, it could be anything, and I think most parents would rather have their children play games than doing drugs.


So yet again I blame the parents for their children's troubles with the gaming world, which I suppose is a bit unfair. Of course the children need to be able to take responsibility for their own lives, they can not simply rely on their parents to do everything for them. I wish more parents would dare to take interest in their children's gaming activites. As an example, this is something that my parents have always done, and who knows, one day they might even become gamers themselves (with some practice, I'm sure they would do great!). So to all you parents out there (not that I think any other parents reads this anyway), approach your kids, take interest, it will turn out for the better, trust me on that.
And instead of trying to stop them playing games too much, try to find out what makes them skip school, since that is the real problem. Solve that, and you have the gaming problem solved as well.

Rockin' Legends or The Other Type of Game.

So, last Wednesday I finally got off my butt and got myself Guitar Hero 3. So far it's great, completed it on Medium and then went up to Hard, but I'm still unused to using the fifth fret, but it shouldn't be too long before I get the hang of it. I hope. There really is something special about standing in the middle of your livingroom, holding an undersized plastic guitar while singing along to old classics. Apart from doing that I'm finally having a midterm break. A whole week away from the pains and horrors that is school. I'll probably sit around doing practically nothing to recharge my batteries, which I'm really going to need, since as soon as this week is over I'm faced with two tests (again), this time in physics and Spanish. El Blergh.

Rightio, like the title so cleverly implies I'll be talking (or writing) about the other type of games today. There's a lot of people out there who think that videogames = violence, and while that is true in several ways the largest part of the videogame industry lies elsewhere, namely in casual games. For those with no idea of what it is, a casual game is a very simple game usually consisting of some form of puzzle solving. It's really odd how something as simple as Bejeweled can be so hopelessly addicting, and it makes me pose myself the question, how? Most gamers loves it when a game has a great storyline and interesting characters with some kind of depth combined with some kind of action. Casual games has none of that, unless with action you also count three diamonds of the same colour being combined and then dissapearing. The reason why they still love these, in comparison, boring games might be in the fact that they're used more as a form of recreation. Take a game as Guitar Hero for example (oh, do you see how cleverly I connect my two topics?). Essentially, it's a very simple game. There's the five frets and the pick thingy, that's six buttons total needed to play the game. Pretty much anyone can handle that, from the ultimate hardcore player to the retired grandfather. There's several difficulties ranging from easy to next to impossible, yet they all give you the illusion that you are, in fact, Keith Richards.
Though perhaps the most important point with casual games is that the time investment needed is very low. There's a lot of people who say that they don't play games because they don't have the time for it with jobs, families, and such getting in the way. But with casual games they can simply play a song or two on Guitar Hero before having to return to the horrible reality consisting of duties.

In conclusion then. The popularity of casual games comes from their simplicity, a nice break from the stressful reality or the more challenging shooter games, that you can play for just as long as you have time for.
Thus you have the shooter games and you have the puzzle games, perhaps the future holds a combination of the two (something we've already had a taste of in Valve's Portal).

Tests, Valentine and Xbox or The Internet Language Massacre.

So here I am again, it's 2 in the morning and I'm quite tired, but I felt inspired to write something, this is where I ended up. I must admit, when I first created this blog I wasn't very serious about it, but now I'm actually beginning to like this. I've decided to make each entry in this blog into two parts. One where I write about myself and what's happening in my life, and the other one will be a debate of some sort (most likely gamesrelated, since that's my thing).

So, where to start?
Well, I've been really busy the last week. School is being a pain and keeps tossing tests in my face. Next Monday there's history and on Wednesday there's math. I've never really been a fan of math, too much logic for my taste. History, on the other hand, is more enjoyable. Though I really don't think that it's the subject that's boring, it's mainly about the teacher in my opinion. A great teacher can make the most boring subject fun and interesting, whereas a crappy teacher can completely butcher the opposite.
Valentine's Day has payed it's annual visit as well. I didn't really expect anyone to give me anything, and surprisingly enough I was correct. Not that anyone else I knew got anything either and nor did I ever really care much for Valentine.
I've also made a mental note to myself promising that when my keyboard finally snaps and dies a horrible death I will open it up to see what kind of creatues live there. If you peer down between the keys there's so much food there I think I could open up a restaurant for insects. Okay, maybe not that much food, but I believe that I have created some kind of sentient life down there. Maybe I could breed it and bring it to biology class for top grade. Apart from school I've mainly been playing Xbox 360 on my freetime. A certain person (you know who you are) made me think of getting Guitar Hero III for it, but I just haven't managed to get my lazy butt to buy it. I'll do it soon. Really. Honest.


Anyways, this week I was thinking of writing about the way the internet changes peoples written language. It has many names, ranging all the way from internetspeech to retardspeech. People with the most dreadful English using "u" instead of "you" becomes a regular sight. Being quite the linguistic person it really makes my skin crawl seeing people write like that. However, the oddest part in all this is that some abbreviations are accepted whereas some are not. For example, the phrase "lol" (laugh out loud, for the uneducated) is used frequently by the same people who curse out the ones saying "u". But how bad is it, really? Is it just the youth being lazy, or are we in the transition to a new way of writing. Language has always changed, if you look in older books you can almost instantly see differences in speech. They have more and seemingly "unnecessary" letters (at least they do in old Swedish). Perhaps 50 years in the future people will look back and ask why people took the time to write "you" when "u" does the job just fine. What are the reasons for the changes though? Personally I think that it's a combination of several reasons. One may be, of course, that the person writing doesn't really have any good knowledge of English, and as such uses abbreviations instead of the full words. It's a lot easier to simply write "2" instead of wasting time thinking if it's supposed to be "to" or "too". I wouldn't say that it goes faster writing that way, though. It really doesn't take that much time to press the two extra keys turning "u" into "you". Another reason that seems more likely to me is that people think that's the way you are supposed to write on the internet. I remember when I first began playing Star Wars Galaxies at the age of 12 (I think it was), I wrote in internetspeech because it seemed cool, but as I became friends with several adults who wrote properly I soon began to take influence of them and voíla.
I read an article not too long ago about how this has evolved in the U.S. It stated that some kid in some state had applied for a summer job writing something along the lines of "i want 2 b a counselor because i love 2 work with kids.". Actually that is the exact quote, seeing how I managed to dig up the article (http://www.usatoday.com/life/2003-03-31-chat_x.htm). I agree with many of the people in that article saying it's up to the parents to teach their children where what kinds of speech are appropriate (althought I do think that a normal person should be able to tell the difference, but apparantly not).

In conclusion then. The internet isn't destroying our languages, it simply evolves it in a way a lot of us do not like (I being in the latter category). Whether it's here to stay or if it'll go away still remains to be seen.

Now it's time for bed, tomorrow there's studying to be done.

Who Is This Guy or What Is An Internet Friend?

Yeah, I know that I abandoned this blog for some time now, but I just couldn't find the time or the patience to sit down and write. But here I am again, I hope you enjoy it.

So, who am I?
My name is Nils Blombäck, I was born on the 4th of July 1992, nothing all too interesting there. I'm currently doing my last year in elementary school, and after that it's off to more important things. My parents divorced about a year ago, something I think I've been able to handle quite well. I'm your general teenager geek, complete with glasses and no girlfriend. When not working my arse off with schoolwork I mainly play videogames. Yeah, that's pretty much what I do. Some might call it sad, some might call me a 'no-lifer' (a term I very much dislike ), personally I'd like to call myself happy, but then again that's just me. I've always thought that you should do whatever you feel makes you happy. Some people like to party, thus they should do it. Some people like to play football0, thus they should do just that. Some people like to play videogames, but then they're marked as no-lifers. But we do have a life, it's just different.
What does these lives consist of, then? Isn't it just an escape from reality that makes you dump your 'real life' for a virtual one? I agree partly to this, some people might use gaming as an escape from reality, which, apparantly, is a very bad thing to do. That probably means you're insane and have lost control of your life. But all people find an escape from reality somewhere. We all need a place where we can be ourselves, not having to wear the mask we must put on outside to make it look like you have the perfect life. It's just the fact that escaping to a game is very taboo. The time I spend in World of Warcraft is mainly spent chatting with my friends. Yes, chatting. And I do it with people from all over Europe, giving me the chance to learn of other cultures as well.
"But those aren't real friends! You've never even met them!", exclaims the doubtful.
Since when was a penpal not considered a friend? Is friendship defined by how many times you've met eachother face-to-face? No, it is defined by trust. And believe me when I say that I have friends in World of Warcraft that have entrusted me with secrets they didn't even want to tell their own 'real friends', and vice versa. For example, when my parents told me they were going to get a divorce the first people whom I told was my guild in WoW. Now, would I have said that to somebody I didn't know? Didn't trust? Of course I wouldn't, but I trust these people, they've earned that. We've seen pictures of each other, talked with each other via programs and microphones. What's the difference in doing that and meeting each other for real? If the first contact you get with a person is via writing then you have no possibilites to create a prejudice about the person in question. You have no idea whether he is black or white, Jewish or a Christian. You only see his thoughts.

What have I been trying to say here, then? Well, basically that I don't see there being a huge line between the internet world and the real one. They're both the same. There is no such thing as a no-lifer. We all have lives, they just differ in what you like to do. If you're still doubting I urge you to try this out. Who knows, you might even end up with a friend for the rest of your life.

The Introduction

This is a general blog about me, important happenings in my life and my thoughts about things (generally about gaming). It might evolve into something else in the future, suppose I'll see about that.

I hope you'll enjoy it.