Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Fårö Means Sheep Island



My parents are in Sweden! I traveled to meet them on the Baltic Sea island of Gotland (which means 'good land' in Swedish). There we visited some friends of the family who retired from the hustle and bustle (not) of Stockholm to become sheep farmers. The actual location was on the much smaller and more exotic island of Fårö (which means 'sheep island' in Swedish) located just off the north coast of Gotland.



Fårö is famous for being the home of Ingmar Bergman, probably tied with Bjorn Borg as the most famous living Swede. The family we stayed with are his neighbors. They say they have spoken on the phone with his estate but never actually seen him around. Apparently he is a better filmmaker than a neighbor.



We spent our days herding sheep, eating, drinking, and sightseeing. My especially mom loved the local dish saffron pancakes, made with local salmon berries which only grow on the island. Yum.



The last night we stayed in the old Hanseatic League walled city of Visby for a night as well. Visby is the capital of Gotland and is known as the city of "roses and ruins". Like most Swedish designations, it's not a very creative because it is full of roses and ruins. The Swedes call it like they see it.



My favorite part of Gotland is the rocky beaches with giant standing stones. It's worth the trip to see them alone.



I did a bad job of taking pictures of sheep and drinking on this trip. Next time I will do better. Promise.

Friday, May 18, 2007

My Bad.... XBOX 360 Rules



Last November I wrote a rather off-the-cuff post about the XBOX-360 without really testing one first. I have owned one for about six months now and I must say I was completely wrong. The XBOX 360 is totally fantastic in nearly every way from the controllers to the graphics. The games are incredible as well.

This is wonderful news for many reasons... but most of all because the number one reason I had for not switching to Linux on my computer was games. Gaming on Linux is not so good. But now... nothing is stopping me from running a real operating system on my computer and going to the XBOX (connected to a projector of course and hi-fi sound system) when I need a break.

Since I just got a virus on my computer today running that awful crap known as Windows XP Home Edition, I will be installing Ubuntu when I get home today and running Windows XP Home in a VM Ware virtual machine as God intended when I need to use a legacy app or remember what a Blue Screen of Death looks like (or run Photoshop or IE6 to test a website).

Sorry this post is a little geeky... but it had to be said. And Microsoft if you are reading this please put the XBOX group in charge of your next computer OS or else it's all over for you (if it isn't already). The masses can't be that far behind the geeks.