nilshammar

Archive for the ‘friends’ Category


Lending a Helping Hand

In friends on July 8, 2009 at 7:46 pm

I received a call on my cell phone today, from my cousin in Stockholm. It arrived around lunch time. I was at work. This is how it went:

“Hi Nils”, he said. “What’s today’s date?”

“Hang on… It’s July 8″, I answered. “Why?”

“Nevermind, thanks. Bye!”.

This is fascinating, because he must have reasoned something like this:

“I don’t know what date it is. I need to find out. I can either:

a) check my computer (email client, calendar, Google)

b) open the calendar in my cell phone

c) find a newspaper and check the front page

d) ask the guy next door

e) Or! I can call my cousin and ask him to give me the answer. He doesn’t do anything important anyway.”

THEY TOLD ME YOU COULD PUNCH AS HARD AS JOE LOUIS

In friends, private life on December 18, 2008 at 4:54 pm

That’s what Muhammed Ali said to George Foreman, as Foreman tried to punch Ali senseless in Congo 1974.

“THEY TOLD ME YOU COULD PUNCH AS HARD AS JOE LOUIS” is a brilliant tease to get Foreman furious, and it worked.

It was also Ali’s way of showing defiance — to Foreman, to his own age, to the experts who said he was history.

It reminds me of the feeling you have when you’re on a sailing boat, and the wind picks up, and the water starts flooding in, and the sky looks dark, and you scream “IS THIS ALL YOU GOT?” with all your lungs.

Or when you just have a bad day, after many bad days in a row. That’s when you walk out, turn your face towards the howling wind, and scream.

“THEY TOLD ME YOU COULD PUNCH AS HARD AS JOE LOUIS.”

(This post is for you E. Read it while listening to the theme song from Gladiator. Then watch what happens ca 2.20 into this video).

The Power of Puppies

In friends, marketing on November 19, 2008 at 11:06 am

Barack Obama doesn’t seem to miss a single opportunity to talk about the new puppy he’ll get his daughters once they move to the White House. It’s a nice trick, ands makes the Obamas seem more like a normal family, with normal problems. 

And then I got an marketing email from our buddies at Stardoll (one of the largest sites in the world for teenage girls) and wow, these guys have truly perfected the art of Manipulation Through Cuddliness. Look at the picture below, and show me a single 13-year-old girl who would say no to this “gift”. 

evilpuppy

Evil and cynical? Not at all, just clever marketing. 


Living For the Weekend

In friends, private life, surfing on September 15, 2008 at 3:27 pm

A good indication for how good weekend break you’ve had is the amount of angst you have when you’re back in the city. Yesterday was pretty rough, which means I’ve a wonderful weekend.

I returned to my ol’ true love of Saunton Sands, and had a smashing surf session yesterday morning – glossy and clean waves, sunshine and blue skies (which is why my face is red today).

I also got lucky and caught a ride back home to London with Oksana, Emma, and Kadi, young ladies who know how to keep themselves (and others) entertained.

As you can see from Emma’s worried face below, she doesn’t trust my skills with the surf rack that much.

Oxford vs. Cambridge, Settled Once and For All

In friends, investing, marketing on September 10, 2008 at 9:51 am

I’ve done a small private investment in Arena Flowers, an online flower business run by a friend here in London. I’m impressed with the team and what they’ve achieved so far, and I think they can shake up the flower industry quite a bit. There’s definitely room for some fresh ideas and a younger brand.

I’m especially curious to see how this investment will compare to the one I did a few years ago in Mucho Mas, who sells the best tasting burritos this side of Tijuana. Both are “fast-growing London-based b2c businesses with bold ambitions”, but while one-half of Mucho Mas has a First from Cambridge, the Arena co-founders have degrees from Oxford.

Even as a culturally handicapped Swede, I know there’s a strong rivalry between these old institutions, which is why I’m happy to be in a position to finally settle this issue: whoever makes me rich, wins.

The French and Their Wanking

In friends, kindo, office space, random on September 4, 2008 at 4:00 pm

One of my favorite colleagues is French. He’s been having issues with some English words. When he presented his latest report, he surprised us all by talking about different ways of “wanking” products, and which sites he thought had the best “wanking”. He meant ranking, obviously, but that didn’t stop us from laughing hard for 10 minutes straight. Yes, we’re childish.

“In Sweden, even the horses are blond”

In friends, private life, random on July 7, 2008 at 11:25 am

A quote from a surprised foreign friend, who visited Sweden for the first time this weekend.

What’s Up With The Little Frogs?

In friends, private life, random on June 17, 2008 at 3:50 pm

As I was explaining the concept of midsummer to my South African colleagues a few days ago, I found myself staring in disbelief at a few video clips from YouTube. The clips showed hundreds of Swedish men and women jumping around a maypole, pretending to be little frogs.

Hundreds of sober and mentally sane men and women, pretending to be little frogs, making loud frog noises.

“What’s up with that”, they asked. “Why do you pretend to be little frogs”?

I have absolutely no clue why. Do we look like little frogs?

Swedish men

Little frog

Good Picture, Bad Accident

In friends, private life, random on June 13, 2008 at 11:41 am

(Emailed to me from a friend, who took the wrong turn with his motorcycle)

The Benefits of Bruises

In friends, private life on June 6, 2008 at 12:03 pm

Yesterday I spent some time with Alexander, who is 3 years old. I don’t spend much time with kids normally, so I was unprepared for the raw energy he puts into whatever he does. There were no hesitation, no fear, just a frontal attack on life.

Equally impressive was Alexander’s mother. Even as Alexander smashed his nose into a heavy iron gate, and he started crying as if the world was about to end, she remained cool and made sure he got the attention he needed.

To me, this seems to be the biggest challenge of parenthood – how can you avoid worrying too much, when you know how dangerous the world is to a kid growing up?

I guess you just have to accept that these are lessons for life – painful, but useful. (And since the day I smashed my own head open on an iron gate when I was five, I’ve been quite good at avoiding them.)

On a Deserted Island, Far Far Away

In friends, private life on April 28, 2008 at 9:03 am

With hotdogs, beers, and four smelly friends.

My Cousin – the Ape?

In friends, kindo, private life, random on February 27, 2008 at 1:19 pm

I’ve always been fascinated by apes and monkeys, without quite understanding why. The opening chapter of Jared Diamonds book “The Third Chimpanzee” presents one explanation.

According to him, and according to other studies, there are good reasons to put the chimpanzee in the human family tree. Scientists claim that the chimp is more closely related to humans than they are to the gorillas, and should be put in the same genus as us.

According to an National Geographic article about the same subject, “studies indicate that humans and chimps are between 95 and 98.5 percent genetically identical”, and “researchers argue that humans and chimp lineages evolutionarily diverged from one another between five and six million years ago”.

I know this is an explosive subject, and I’m not enough of an expert to really say what’s fact and what’s fiction. (Gareth probably could though, since he’s a trained zoologist).

But when I study photos of chimpanzees, and my own cousin living in here London, I clearly see similarities.

chimpanzee-2.jpg

46585023308.jpg

Social Media – The Birthday Experiment

In friends, random on January 10, 2008 at 1:17 pm

Since I was my birthday yesterday, I decided to do an experiment. I wanted to figure out what type of media that I’m actually using to communicate with friends and family, and started to count the greetings I received (thanks to all!).

This is how the greetings were distributed (n=67):

- Skype message: 52%

- Facebook: 20%

- Email: 9%

- In person: 7%

- SMS: 6%

- Phone call: 4%

- MSN: 1%

- Offline cards: 1%

Conclusion: Skype is still the heart and hub of my communication, but Facebook is growing in importance. Offline cards is more or less dead. Going to be interesting to see how this evolves over the coming years.

Real Hard Work

In friends, sailing on December 27, 2007 at 8:30 pm

I visited a good ol friend today, who recently bought a house far out in Bohuslän’s archipelago.

She told me a story about her great grand-father, who was a fisherman in the village. Apparently, all of the men in the village used to work on the same fishing boat, called “Polarstjärnan”. Around 1890 the boat went missing, and all the men perished – including her ancestor. Only women and children were left in the village, left to take care of themselves.

So I guess my daily struggle with the District line is quite OK, considering.

Here’s a short clip from Stocken. It’s an amazingly beautiful place, but unfortunately the quality of the clip is bad.

Kindo’s getting noticed

In blogging, friends, kindo, marketing on September 28, 2007 at 3:17 pm

Emerge.se is writing about Kindo, and other similar companies. It’s a good analysis, worth reading (if you’re lucky enough to speak Swedish).

Mucho Mas Delivers

In friends, investing, mucho mas on September 8, 2007 at 8:36 pm

Yep, the food was excellent. Pema stuffed herself with two burritos, she just couldn’t get enough.

Eric (one of the founder) looked seriously sleep-deprived though. But that’s the price you pay to bring real burritos to the Londoners.

dsc00220.jpg

dsc00219.jpg

Mucho Mas, the Best Burritos in the World?

In friends, mucho mas on September 7, 2007 at 10:28 am

I have’t been there myself yet, so I don’t know if that statement is true. But I think it is, since I invested in the company ;)

And Mike at Techcrunch seems to agree.

Mucho Mas was founded by Dan Houghton and Eric Partakers, good friends from Skype. These guys are among the smartest people I know. Hopefully that translates into tasty Mexican cooking.

I’m going there tomorrow evening, to see if they live up to the hype.

Outdated Censorship

In friends, random, social networks on July 12, 2007 at 1:12 pm

It seems like in the world of investment banking, MySpace is still ahead of Facebook. My friends over in the city can without a problem spend hours on Facebook, throwing cakes and poking each other. But MySpace is a big no-no. This is the message they get:

“Under the current BankName Information Technology Risk standards,
http://www.myspace.com/ is considered to be in one of the following
categories: Dating/Social .

BankName does not allow access by default to “Dating/Social” websites
on the Internet.”

Come on, bankers! Noone cares about MySpace anymore anyway.

Glissers Making Friends

In business development, friends, surf directory, swedish surfers on July 12, 2007 at 1:00 pm

Glissers has had a good week.

First, globalsurfari.com and Gary Brewer added glissers accommodations to their global surf forecasting tool. You’ll see a list of surf accommodations close to the surf spot you selected, “powered by glissers.com”. Nice :)

Secondly, the guys at Nordsurf wrote about a nice piece about glissers, and asked their community to help out with the directory. Nordsurf is something as interesting as a Swedish producer of surf equipment, and their boards are supposed to be top quality.

More about Nordsurf and globalsurfari.com on glissers blog.