Chillaxing in my Stockholm flat
I'm chillaxing in my apartment today, cleaning and organizing some things that have been neglected recently, listening to tunes and eliminating some munchables. I'm filing photos from my travels, ordering prints from
KodakGallery.eu (a great service), arranging my desk and my desktop, and basically just taking care of the online and offline spring cleaning that my life needs right now.
I just finished and posted a few old blog posts that never actually made it out of draft status, including the
Midnattsloppet and
Hong Kong posts. I'll add some other pics and words later today.
The Midnattsloppet post is particularly relevant because I'm running again in next Sunday’s
Vienna City Marathon. Not an entire marathon, because that's currently beyond me, but as part of a relay team. My leg is 9.1 kilometres and I've set myself the goal of finishing that in 50 minutes.
I've been ill for the past few days and unfortunately not training, but today I've made many trips up and down my five flights of stairs rather than taking the lift. And tomorrow morning, I'll run to and around Kungsholmen for a full 10K route and see what my time is for that.
The only other interesting thing to share now is the soundtrack for my day: I’m listening to Dr. Alan Cross'
Ongoing History of New Music which
The Edge is now streaming, and just enjoying it so much. It’s not quite the same as timing my drive home from Montreal so I hit Peterborough at 7PM so I can listen in earnest with a steaming
Tim's in one hand, but it's still fine academic and musical whisperings for my lonely ear… Thanks, Alan!
Speaking in Berlin
I am 10,000 metres above Denmark, but I feel bowed under the weights heaped in disarray across my mind. It doesn't help that this lousy
De Havilland DHC-8 400 Series commuter flight from Berlin to Stockholm isn't properly sound insulated and the crushing thrum of its engines is pulverizing the boulder of my consciousness into thousands of stony pebbles. It also doesn't help that George Winston’s melancholic December was whispering through my headphones earlier (while I could still hear it). And I suppose the facts I'm tired and feeling sort of ill also don't help. But I will survive... because I'm a fighter.
I spent today at
The World Telemedia Conference in Berlin, Germany. I was invited to speak on a mobile gambling panel with a few noted luminaries in the industry.
We have a very compelling story as we STILL have the world’s only real-money mobile multiplayer
poker game on the market 14 months after we've launched it (though we do also have several offline and play-money only "trainer" versions, too). I know there are at least a dozen play money games out there today, and some comparisons have shown how exceptional our games really are. But we certainly aren't sitting complacent, and I spoke about what we've been working on recently. It's kind of fun to have some strong cards already up our sleeves and ready to play before we have real competition in this area.
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what Party's
game is like when and if it is finally released. Also,
rumour has is that UB will likely be releasing something sometime. And I’ve heard some other companies are also working on mobile multiplayer poker...
The panel itself was good, but I think it's still going to be some time until the masses take their gaming mobile. I think 2008 will be the year, and it's now all about positioning and converting the early adopters. But I won't write much about strategy here.
During a break in the day, I went for a short walk to see some element of Berlin. Travelling around Europe to only see airports, hotels, meeting rooms and restaurants is comfortable, but not something that will make for good storytelling in my old age. Although, like my Dad, I could always say: "oh, it was nothing special." :)
I spent some time breathing in a park, and took a walk by a river. I wanted to visit Checkpoint Charlie, The Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag and the new Holocaust Memorial, but frustratingly didn’t have the time for it. The last time I was in Berlin – in '97 with Shawn – we also only had a few hours of spare time and spent them at The Wall.
This is a picture I took from a bridge near my hotel:
It was a gorgeous day.
Next time I'm in Berlin, I'll be sure to see more of it.
