IT'S COLD

But not that cold...



YET. My fingers were numb riding my bike home from Joel's place after work tonight. I'm NOT looking forward to riding the bike in snow and ice. At least I have a helmet now which looks dorky as hell but I truly believe it is only a matter of time before I'm hit by a car on my bike. I've already crashed twice on the one day it was icy screwing up the bike really bad and busting up my hand, but when I got the bike fixed I had snow tires put on which was jävla dyrt (f-ing expensive). When Frida took it to the repair place for me they were like "Did he have to go to the hospital? How bad was he hurt?" So I guess if the bike repair guys say that the thing was messed up.

-My new favorite Swedish word is "sjuksköterskeutbildningen", and I are proud cause I can say it good fer realzz. The meaning is boring but it is a bus stop. Peeps in my Swedish class say it's worth the bus fare to hear the Stephen Hawking robot voice with the Swedish accent say it when you stop there on the bus. "Nästa, Sjuksköterskeutbildningen" Joy!

-I hate Jason Mraz so, so, so much. I want to claw my eyes out when the song comes on the radio in the mornings on the way to work, seriously. I can't believe the other guys still tap their feet to it like it's not the most dry-heave inducing tripe ever conceived by humans. Maybe I should say something. I guess I'm too polite.

-Still playing Castlevania. I recommended it to Jerker. He said he played it on his PSP for like 10 minutes and quit. It felt like the sky had fallen on my head. I wept bitter tears of defeat.

-Really want to see an Amon Amarth show after Cosmo Lee's entertaining review on Pitchfork. Favorite quote from his review: "To see men, women, metalheads, and Wall Street types [when he was at a show of theirs in NYC], young and old, chanting, "Oden! Guide our ships!" was quite heartwarming." Guess I should start by listening to some of their music. Meh.

-Watching the new Dexter episodes a few days after they come out still. Gonna start watching the new season of Top Chef tonight too. Also watching season 12 (newest) of Top Gear as it comes out. Just got the newest epsiode tonight. Top Gear is seriously one of the best TV shows ever, even if I do fast forward through the garbage interviews with British people I don't know when they introduce the Star in a Reasonably Priced car.

-Don't have much time to listen to music, which is truly unfortunate. I wanted to get an ipod when I'm back for Thanksgiving, but thanks to the stupid dollar gaining like 30% on the crown and a lack of fundage it looks like that's down the drain : ( : ( THANKS A LOT STRENGTHENING DOLLAR

Oh, on that note. It was really difficult for me to see how impossible it is to accurately translate one's wages from one currency to another, but this kind of puts it in perspective. Compared to when I started my job I now make 30% less money in dollars. That is a crapload. But my wages haven't changed at all and prices here have remained completely constant. You can see from this example alone how pointless it is to try and convert my wages here to dollars and compare to what I might make at home, which I did when I got here as I didn't understand this strange reality. You can definitely translate prices for goods though. When I got here a lot of good stuff in the U.S. (i mainly was comparing electronic gizmos like an ipod, but a general rule of thumb is half price in the U.S.) was about 50% less than here, but not quite that much anymore : ( : (
I now are sad for no ipod.