4. januar 2003

Vampires, murder and roleplaying games The grotesque discovery by a group of children of a severed head in a river in Sweden initiated another boundless media panic. It proved to be the body of 22 year old Marcus Norén (picture), and when journalists discovered that one of his hobbies were role playing games (RPG) with a vampire theme, they immediately jumped to conclusions. The kind of game Noren played consisted of dressing up and walking around in the world, acting out the play, not merely sitting down at a table rolling dice. Those with a bit of memory may remember similar media panics about RPGs in the 90s, initiated by the fanatical conspiracy theorist Patricia Pulling who managed to convince a number of otherwise sane people that RPGs, especially dungeons and dragons, were part of a Satanic conspiracy to take over the world. Many journalists influence by her ideas portrayed innocent role play gaming in the most sinister terms. No surprise, unfortunately, that history is repeating itself. According to some media reports, the murder and decapitation was very similar to vampire myths, for example in the way you have to kill a vampire to make sure it stays, well, dead. Speculation took off from there, with journalists running around looking for people to feed them juicy gossip about RPGs. Luckily, this time the police at least seems to have kept a cool head, and done a normal investigation. Thursday a 46-year old man confessed to an aunt that he had killed Noren, and was subsequently arrested along with a 28-year old charged as an accomplice. What is clear is that the suspects had nothing to do with the role-playing games, and what is likely is that the background of the murder has a lot to do with alcohol. 9:06:03 PM    comment []

New motto! Blogito, ergo sum. If anyone steals this for a blog name, I'll sue them.  © Mine! 5:36:59 PM    comment []

Comment of the day A friend of mine, who will remain nameless and anonymous, obtained an old Mac for free and decided to play around with it. After some time she posted this complaint on a messageboard: Ughhh I can see why people say they don't like Macs, I couldn't even bring up the MS-DOS prompt to install a game on it. Priceless! Sorry sweetie, but this was too good to pass on. 5:12:36 PM    comment []

Supreme Court throws out stay on DVD crack posting ban Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor friday dissolved an emergency stay where she had earlier barred web sites from publishing codes used to decrypt DVDs. The entertainment industry has been fighting fiercly against cracks it claims are costing them milliions. Considering these codes are availbale from hundreds of web sites worldwide, the previous ruling was nonsensical. 3:51:32 PM    comment []

Paper planes against US embassy Three young Norwegians who launched a barrage of carefully folded paper airplanes against the US embassy in Oslo in the Autumn of 2001, protesting the bombing of Afghanistan, finally gets their day in court. They are charged with disturbing the peace and for defying police orders. Sheesh! What is wrong with the people in this country? Other countries have suicide bombers, bomber pilots on speed, or they go postal with automatic guns. And the descendants of vikings use paper planes! 3:15:27 PM    comment []

Solomon islanders survived The first contact has been made with people on the Solomon Islands davastated by the cyclone Zoe, and the number of fatalities appear to be astonishingly small. In fact, according to the New Zealand cameraman who landed on Tikopia by helicopter Friday, everybody was alive. The islanders had been hiding in mountain caves. The need for relief work is still huge, however, as entire villages, homes and crops have been totally destroyed. There has still not been contact with the villagers on the island Anuta (picture). 11:37:28 AM    comment []

This way to flamewar This is my original message that provoked a bit of responses here and there, and here are the comments received so far. My problem is, I like this way too much. Damn viking blood! 4:47:49 AM    comment []

Good thing that some people enjoy the snow This is actually right up the mountainside behind my house. I saw lots of people, kids and adults, who were sledging down all the way to town, earlier today. Picture from Bergensavisen. 1:24:45 AM    comment []

John Edwards in 2004 William Saletan in Slate already proclaims John Edwards the new Clinton. 12:05:29 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.02.03; 00:36:25.