A look back at the plans for 2009 – and a few for 2010

A couple of days ago I remember that right after the year started back in january, I made a small post to the blog where I summed up a couple of plans for 2009. The year has passed, so let’s have a look at how everything went..

Listen to more amazing music

I’ve spent a lot more time listening to music I didn’t have a prior relationship to – but actually the increase in new “old” music came through the release of Spotify. I’ve discovered loads of new music through their most excellent service, and got myself an upgraded account just after the summer. Probably the best 99 NOK I spend each month.

Attempt to keep up on my reading habits, which has dwindled a bit in the last months of 2008.

This has also mostly worked out – but my reading habits are quite on/off. I’ve travelled less to Oslo during the last year, which means less reading on the train. There’s still quite a stack of books in my office waiting for a bookshelf – both read and to be read.

Grenserittet and Birkebeinerrittet

I did both and got to the finish in both. In Birkebeinerrittet I actually managed to finish 24 minutes better than last year, even when the weather was completly awful. I still have nightmares about it – but this year the weather’s going to be just average with the temperature just right! For Grenserittet I finished in about the same time as last year, it seems mainly because I were way too defensive at the beginning of the race. Just seven months until we’re good to go again!

Keep the updates of my blog running, but attempt to start a more focused blog together with Christer.

The updates on the blog took a more technical turn during the year, and the trickle of new posts slowed down a bit. We did not launch a separate blog, and currently it isn’t one of the plans for 2010.

Take more responsibility.

I’ll leave that up for this year too, as that’s something I’ll always have to be better at. Not sure if I did any better this year, though.

Launch at least one new product concept and idea.

While I didn’t launch a separate product, 2009 brought with it a publishing platform written for the relaunch of Gamer.no. The product has been developed and suited for Gamer.no’s operations, but I maintain ownership of parts of the platform I’ve written myself. Hopefully 2010 will be the year were I’m able to get another customer up on the same platform and maybe launch a public service based on the platform. We lost the old Gamer-platform on friday morning and had the new platform running and handling requests at monday evening. It’s still the same – just vastly expanded – platform, which I’m quite proud of today.

Launch three new areas of content on pwned.no.

Didn’t happen, although I released a large update for pwned.no yesterday. The update attempts to increase the social aspect of the site, as gaming is an inherently social activity. This does not mean it’s going to be a social network – just that it’s going to be easier to keep track of who’s doing a good job.

Still have the three new areas of content on my todo-list.

Finish more games. I’m really good a starting games, but not really good at finishing them.

This actually changed during 2009. I’ve picked up several old games that I never finished back in 2006 – 2008, and managed to play them all the way through. The worst experience was trying to finish Rainbow Six: Vegas on Realism Mode (.. which I had started a couple of years back).

During the christmas holidays I’ve been playing a lot of Assassin’s Creed 2 – hopefully finishing it before going back to work in three days. A good way to start the new year!

And with that – a happy new year to all of you!

Plans for 2009 – and seven things

Magne has posted his plans for 2009, and as this networking on teh intarwebs thing work, he’s asking his readers to do the same. It’s obviously easy to convince me to do stuff, so here goes nothing:

  • Listen to more amazing music: I’ve finally gotten a proper stereo in our new house, so I’m finding myself just listening to great music.
  • Attempt to keep up on my reading habits, which has dwindled a bit in the last months of 2008.
  • I’m doing Grenserittet and Birkebeinerrittet in August this year too, so I’m getting ready for starting the bicycle season as soon as the snow disappears. Even got new warm underwear for christmas, so I’m starting early! (If I just could remember to get my running shoes too, I might actually start even earlier!)
  • Keep the updates of my blog running, but attempt to start a more focused blog together with Christer.
  • Take more responsibility.
  • Launch at least one new product concept and idea.
  • Launch three new areas of content on pwned.no.
  • Finish more games. I’m really good a starting games, but not really good at finishing them.

Hopefully that covers the issues Magne were talking about, so then we head over to our next networking-on-teh-intarwebs-issue; Christer’s challenge to post seven things people might not know about me (this challenge has been all over Planet PHP for a few days, so people are probably getting bored..):

  1. I studied 2 years at NTNU before heading down south and finishing my master’s degree at HIOF within the field of digital maps and cartography. While in Trondheim I worked as a Oracle (Orakeltjenesten), so I’m a Orakel Emeritus.
  2. I played football for two years when I was 10 and 12. I even managed to be the score the most goals for our team, the 2nd team of Rolvsøy IF, in a season: 3.
  3. I drove a Volvo 340 for a year; a very nice car, but with five (.. or six) people in the car, even the smallest hill became a climb to save our lives..
  4. I’ve competed at The Gathering in different demoscene categories every year since 1997, except 2008. I’ve been less active in the norwegian demoscene during the last year, but that might change in the future.
  5. I’ve played Counter-Strike and Battlefield 2 semiserious for MESED, a clan that I’ve been running since 2000. I were also participating at CPL Copenhagen in 2003 (The Cyberathlete Professional League), where we actually managed to score a draw (and two losses).
  6. I’ve participated in several amateur movie projects (no, not those kind of movies), both as an “actor” and as an editor. I still occasionally edit gaming movies for MESED.
  7. I started up and ran (together with Geir) Vision of Chaos, a computer party in Norway. We managed to get 250-300 visitors in 1999, 2001 and 2002 before I called it quit. We always said we were going to do another party in 2010, as we could call that VoC MMX. The problem is that people no longer know what MMX is.. I also ran a web site for parties and organizing, called partai.org. Maybe we’ll rescue that some day too.

Like that, and that’s the way it is.