K

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

BITE ME

Yah I was gone for a while. You didn't notice nuthin' and you won't notice I'm back... So SHADDUPPAYOMOUTH-A.
This'll probly be long tho.

We are seriously poor after the trip to the US so we stayed home and watched TV tonight.

Background:
One of my favorite shows here are of the "Uncovered" British persuasion, "Ibiza Uncovered" especially. It's a reality show of drunken whatever-the-British-equivalent-of-white-trash-is tourists flashing their dicks and tits for an hour and basically fucking in the streets 'cause they are too drunk and horny to make it back to the hotel. And, yes, IT IS THE HOLY GRAIL OF REALITY TV.
P.S. the current name of the blog was inspired by an episode where two 40-something women ditched their husbands and 7 children for a week to go to Ibiza and try to find 18 year old boys drunk enough to "shag" them... And trust me, they succeeded. Anyway tonight we watched the heavily edited American equivalent like "Party Police" or some shit about drunken white trash at Lake Havasu in the US.
Observations that we made:
Young people in the US have such a messed up view of sexuality compared to the equivalent Brits. The Brits (boys AND girls) are totally realistic about it "Yeah I came here to screw a bunch of people, I'll make no bones about that. I'll probly only get lucky like three times this week but it won't be for lack of trying to score with EVERYONE." Like they all know exactly what is going on, no confusion. I'm sure there are plenty of Brits who don't want to only get drunk and fuck, but those are the boring ones so I don't care. Compare that to the Americans, who put on these ridiculous acts "Ohhh, I'm the good girl who likes to dance drrrty and flash ma tits all over, but I wouldn't mess with you (actually I'll mess with your dog if you give me one more beer)" and "Oh I'm the alpha male who likes to run my mouth and gets laid 8 times a day (except I've only seen a vagina once besides my moms and wouldn't know what to do with yours if you gave it to me on a silver platter)". No one actually comes out and says "I'm only here to get laid. Period." They all seem to have no idea what's going on or how to get what they want despite all wanting the same thing. It's like they are all playing some part in a terrible daytime UPN tween show where mentioning or showing anything even remotely resembling "the business" is strictly VERBOTEN.
There is one explanation for this: in the US party shows are heavily edited so the children don't learn how to act appropriately in drunken orgy style situations past what they have seen in wholly unrealistic Hollywood movies. In Britain the party shows are heavily unedited and the children understand early on that if they want to be drunken sluts for a couple years then just fuckin' do it and don't mess about or you'll blow yer chances. Plus you probly got about 68 more years to be all serious and lame and shit. Listen, this all made so much sense earlier that I could have written about 5 graduate theses on the subject. And that's not even touching on the (flaunted!) complete lawlessness of the British show and the authoritarian moralism of the American garbage (only two sets of tits, and both BLURRED). GOD I should just go back to school and be some pissant philosophy major. I could crank out about 6 degrees a year with this preternatural nogginizing! Masters, PHDs, whatev. They'd give up in about a year and just name the university after me.
END
Next topic:
The most recent episode of Top Gear:
Speaking of theses, if you've ever wanted to know how a battle of wits between Britain and the US would go, look no further than Jeremy Clarkson's conversation with Jay Leno. I'll give you a hint. Jay Leno: NOT. FUCKING. FUNNY... EVER. No matter how hard he tries. Jeremy Clarkson: doesn't try to be funny out of respect for Mr. Leno. STILL. FUCKING. FUNNY. There's so many research papers here I'm hyperventilating. And I haven't even mentioned Japan!!!!

C'mon! Overwrought? Sigh. Ok, maybe a little.
Top Gear.
If you don't agree that it is one of the best TV shows ever... I can understand your point of view. However, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND CAR CULTURE.
Bitch.
I urge you to educate yourself, because you are missing out. Look, one thing I realized in the US these past couple weeks; understanding lots of different cultures increases YO' PLEAZHA. Kinda like those ribbed condoms, or the dog-catchin' dad in "Friday" right? IT'S MAH PLEAZHA! Music, film, cars, video games, literature, anime... Those are just the obvious ones... Tibetan throat singing, Kendo, biology, guns, C'MON there's tons of crap out there. Do yourself a favor and pick a few things yer not into but think you could be and get into them. Just pick something, anything, that you're not that into and read about it! It ain't much work and there is plenty of shit yer missin' out on I promise. But, ok, so you will get into trouble for instance when your film buffness clashes with your car buffness...
"Good night."
The two most unfortunate words ever chosen on a program of ONLY fortunate word choices. If he had just managed to keep his huge mouth shut for two seconds and just DRIVEN for that last shot think of how great that whole segment would have been. Ah well, he gets paid to open his mouth and we all love him for it, water under the bridge Jezza, water under the bridge.
Now get back to not reading my blog you basterds!

FULL DISCLOSURE

In the previous post I was comparing casey and his brother to the music of xiu xiu. Indeed the only reason I checked out casey and his brother was because I read an article about xiu xiu that referenced those characters, and how we laugh at their tragedy er something I don't even remember now... Anyway, I extrapolated some more out of the comparison blah blah no plagiarism here!

I'm slowly accumulating pictures of things that I suspect may be of some amusement for native english speakers that probably don't seem that odd to swedes. I call my collection "pictures of things that I suspect may be of some amusement for native english speakers that probably don't seem that odd to swedes". I'll share soon.

More youtube clips!!!
This is an I guess "anti-alcohol" (I didn't bother to check out the website it's pimping) commercial that plays on prime time TV and before movies here:
ok the embed isn't working so here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qndon0E05Qo

Yes, PRIME TIME TV. Perhaps you couldn't help but notice that among other things it portrays a young man recieving oral sex in a public restroom while he films it with his cell phone then later shows the footage to his friend who is understandably very amused and, I'll speculate here, quite impressed with the first young man's prowess.
Ahem.
Yes.
Um.
I don't think I'm getting the message I'm supposed to...
Suggestion to casting directors of future anti-alcohol ads:
Think over your casting choice for "oral sex girl #1" long and hard.
Long.
And hard.

HERE, YOU'RE WELCOME!

Well I've officially lived in Sweden for exactly one year and a few days now. Feels weird. Have to say I didn't mind the winter at all. Actually I liked it, it's nice to have snow pretty often. The only bad thing about summer is trying to sleep when it is so light. But having light all day when you don't have to get a good night of sleep is awesome enough so it balances out I guess.
I had some purpose for posting... what was it... oh yes.
Can anyone explain to me why in the hell I find this so hilarious???:

I choked on my own laughter the first time I watched it. I have no idea WHY it's funny though. Iced canes??? OMG CLASSIC! There's a second part where they call pool "felted holes". I choked again.
More deliciousness:

That is by far the most genius piece of comedy I have seen in a LONG time. The strangest part is how close (I assume unintentionally) it comes to being a xiu xiu (usually what I'll reply if you ask me my favorite band, that er Ghostface Killah)song. Like REALLY REALLY close. But the affect this hamburgers song cultivates is the exact opposite of the aesthetic xiu xiu cultivates (I think???). Is it simply a parody of xiu xiu? Not likely as the other "Casey and his brother" songs don't quite bear that out. Although the "School" song is frightening in a xiu xiu way, it's still more terrifying than any xiu xiu song I've ever heard, and yet is still funny. Could it be that Jamie Stewart's deadpan capacity actually runs THAT deep??? Genius is as genius does I gyiss. Anyway, here's hoping that Jamie's abuse humor never stops bummin' me out and that recently-burned-to-death-emotionally-shattered-visibly-battered-17-yr-old-neglectees never stop being so f-ing hilarious.
If for some strange reason you thought the above was horrible........y AWESOME like I do check the montage out, EVEN ROCKY HAD A MONTAGE!!!
Even if you didn't like the above, promise me you'll check out the songs "School" "Robbers and Cops" "Xmas Wish" in the following, they are alternately macabre, terrifying, disgusting, disturbing and HILARIOUS:

Brilliant!

LONG WEEKEND OVER : (

Sigh. The long weekend is over.
After having 96 hours of freetime here is what was accomplished:
Yes I made a bookshelf. Well, by "made" I mean assembled the pieces we got in a box from Ikea. No, you are not seeing things, the bed is indeed as long as the room is wide. And it is a tiny bed BTW.
Frida's sister gave us this weather predictor clock thingy that has a wireless weather detector yer supposed to put outside. So I made a little hut for it out of an old plastic bottle and put it out on the back porch. Yes, this is absolutely the geekiest thing I've ever done and I've done more geeky things of varying types and degrees than you can imagine.Anyway I went to all that trouble makin' a little hut and stuff and the damn thing says it's like 70 degrees outside when it's really like 60 degrees outside : ( Somehow it knows that it's cloudy tho, and also tells you if the temp is going up or down.
Moving on... We saw Angels and Demons last night. I guess it could have been worse. I liked the ending, cause the movie was over. Naw, I mean it wasn't awful, but it was pretty silly, especially for seeming to take itself so seriously. I really missed Rome while I was watching it though, basically the whole movie is just one constant reminder that Rome is frickin' sweet. And I'm pretty sure only maybe 10 of the 138 minutes were ACTUALLY in Rome. The rest was CG and soundstages, and probably other Italian citys, as far as I could tell. It also made me think about the fact that Ron Howard has been in showbiz since he was like 5, and he seems pretty normal. He must be the only one.
Oh, I also accomplished this:
I pissed somebody off cause I put glass in the trash room. Good thing they don't know I'm also the one who kept putting regular trash in the compost bin cause I didn't bother reading the signs above them. Look at all those exclamation marks! If they practiced sharia in this country instead of anonymous public shaming I guess I'da been stoned.
Pretty nice weekend over all though.

4 DAY WEEKEND

Today is a holiday so I don't have to go to work. I don't know what the holiday is for but it means I get today and Friday off. I bought some MGD at the alcohol store. I really like MGD. I never used to buy it at home cause it was more expensive than my dirt cheap favorite Miller High Life Light ("the champagne of beers"). But I think if I had been slightly more rich I would have bought MGD all the time instead of High Life. Absolutely nothing else of note. I won a little bit of money at poker this week. No idea why I started playing again out of the blue, but I did. I been playing pretty well. Main thing is the patience. And the not getting pissed at bad beats and going on tilt. If I can keep those two things up I usually play pretty well.
Maybe another post later in the weekend.
Oh, p.s. Norway won the Eurovision contest with some lame violin song. Boring.

EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

I actually caught some of this a couple nights ago.
IT WAS GLORIOUS. It is the weirdest shit ever. There is no context that will allow you to make any sense of it AT ALL. It is AWESOME!
If you somehow have absolutely no idea what it is, it's what it sounds like. A bunch of european countries have contests to find their entry for the year, and then all the countries compete against each other in the country that won the previous year... Anyway some countries try to blend their traditional music with pop music. Entertainment ensues.
Observe:


And a lot of it is just TRULY AWFUL heightening the entertainment to levels till then unkown to me:

Watch that one to the end. WOW
Anyway just had to share that little tidbit. Thinking about watching the finals tonight but I think it might be boring after the shock of the first viewing wears off.

Valborg, Uppsala, 2009

So the week after the car show was this holiday called "Valborg" in Swedish or "Walpurgis" in English. I really have no f-ing clue why anyone bothered to "translate" this untranslatable Swedish holiday that is celebrated in pretty much no other country anywhere. Especially since the english pronunciation sounds almost nothing like the original Swedish. Whatev.
I live in Uppsala. Uppsala has the biggest and oldest university in Sweden (oldest in all of Europe pretty much for that matter). To say theres lots of students here is an understatement. So here's the gist of the holiday: Everyone is shitfaced. Styrofoam boat races. Champagne is sprayed on ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE. I heard literally THOUSANDS of champagne bottles being popped open. Yeah, some other stuff happened I don't know, mainly it's an excuse to be wasted by 10am.
Pics:
First things first, some of the beer I was drinking:
I like falcon beer. It's pretty cheap and doesn't have much taste. What more could you ask for? This particular varietal is of the "BBQ Lager" persuasion. What makes it "BBQ"? I dunno, pork scrapings and charcoal dust? Who cares. Note that it's 3.5%. That's mostly what I drink now since you can only buy the real stuff when the government says you you can. Which is workdays and about 2 hours on Saturday unless you wake up early on Saturday. And what kind of drunk are you if yer doin' that??? What self respecting government DOESN'T allow people to buy alcohol at convenient times?! How else are they supposed to non-overtly oppress? Weak dude.


The pile got much bigger than that. And this is like one pile of about 10. Those are champagne bottles BTW not beer bottles. Maybe you can see but alot of them are broken, and yet I saw no one with gashes in their feet, or any blood whatsoever for that matter, and I still can't understand that since everyone was stumbling around drunk and dancing like crazy to the band that was playing... A guy who actually used to work at this exact place told me that it is extremely common that people get slashed up though, I was just unlucky to not see it this time. Anyway, they must have seriously had about 5,000 on hand at this one student club (out of like 13, they are special clubs for only students). You could buy one for like $15 (a STEAL here) and people were just buying them to spray on their friends. Then there was (sadly?) the really drunk folk that were picking up the already sprayed ones and pouring what was left of them into one bottle trying to fill it up so they could get drunker.
Probably what this guy had been doing:
Two feet away was:
Everyone else.
Earlier in the day:
A big park with about 7000 people in it, at least. Funny part: The absolute most stupid drunk people there were two American girls stumbling around with no idea where they were yelling "PARRRR-TTAAAYYYY!!!! 'S A FUCKIN PAAARRRTTT-AAAYYY!!!! WHOOO!!!!!" and all the Swedes were absolutely terrified. If by terrified I mean ignoring them. Which is what Swedes do when they are terrified, btw. I chuckled heartily at my found meta-ironic-comedy.
Fonmetaromedy.
Oh, almost forgot the boat races, this is the first activity at 10am, there were many people too drunk to walk properly already:
Example 1 above, three dudes outfitted in multi-colored ponchos floating gently atop a giant sombrero. Does it make sense? Absolutely not.
Example 2; a giant chess piece. Note that it is about 8 feet taller than the bridge it is about to go under. I was super excited to see it get knocked over. Unfortunately the douchebags had preplanned er somethin and disassembled it like 2 seconds before going under the bridge and I assume reassembled it after. I dunno cause I lost interest when it didn't cause any injuries. P.S. Frida argued with me about what the knight chess piece is called in English. I said "knight" and she said freaking "horse" which is what it is called in Swedish. Why she thought she knew better than me what it was called in english when SHE DOESN'T EVEN PLAY CHESS is beyond me. REally funny how long it took me to convince her it wasn't called the "horse" though. I mean I understand why she thought it was but still...
Example 3; there was like 4 people dressed like mice on this piece of cheese. One had a bongo and was playing this sick-ass voodoo beat. Another got on all fours and danced the most outrageous demon possessed mouse dance thing I've ever seen. Mind you this is all while they are floating down the river on a giant piece of cheese shaped styrofoam. Again... Sense? NONE. Awesomness? MORE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE.
And finally my bar none absolute favorite picture of the day:
Someone had found a wood pallet and this chick was just standing on it crowd surfing. Everyone was going f-ing frothing at the mouth crazy over it. The girl was like Queen of the WORLD. This must have been like what was happening before moses got his ass lightning bolted for not stopping the golden calf worship or whatever. Truly awesome, they REALLY know how to get wasted here...

It's spelled "Koenigsegg" FOOLS

Car show was pretty tight. We'll just go straight into the pictures. If you don't like them skim the text cause there will be at least one mildly interesting anecdote that has not THAT much to do with cars.
It's me! Ok so the picture is backwards because that was self pic mode but that says 430 SCUDERIA
as in:
As in:
As in the one that is faster than the Enzo. Was in the top 5 of cars I've always wanted to see in person. It did not dissapoint.
So, the anecdote, one of the "spokesmodels" came up and was talking to me. The point of these hot girls standing around talking to dudes who are obviously lusting after the cars and NOT (ok well not as much) the chicks and then trying to talk to the dudes about the cars when it's fully understood by each party which of them knows almost every detail of the car being lusted after, it absolutely baffles me.
Choice comments from the girl:
"They pay so much attention to the details. Like, the details. Like everything on the car."
Oh, so that's why they can ask for and get $300,000 for one and sell out of them every year before they are even manufactured. The details! I can't believe I never thought of that!
"You have to take special classes to drive one, it's not like a city car. You can't really drive it in the city."
Well, that explains the 5-point harnesses and carbon-carbon brakes then, huh?!
"It's like, you think you could just get in this or like get in and drive an F1 car but you can't."
No, actually I didn't think that. Actually I thought if I got in and tried to drive an F1 car it would go a little something like this:


OOPS!
And that was a professional rally driver driving. A good one too.
And the crown jewel quote:
"Have you driven one of these before?"
Okay, am I stuffing $50s in your thong? WTF?
The way I usually look, even coming home from work, I expect people to ask me things like "When was yer last meal ya poor soul?" "Have ya had a hot shower this month?" "There's a soup kitchen just down that road!" But "Have you driven a Ferrari F430 Scuderia, like EVER?" If you really love the word "no", then by all means, ask this to everyone. You'll be plenty happy with the results.

Anyway, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she just was trying to make conversation to the only non-horny-old-midlife-crisis-dude hanging around that wasn't unattractive. Right. I'll just tell myself that. That's her ass on the far right of the picture directly above. She was cute. And Dutch. Hey I said it was only a mildly interesting anecdote.

Weismann was indeed present. They make some crazy retro-y stuff.
The ones I designed for the formula car last year were a lot prettier... The judge even said so! (From the Ariel Atom, this guy here:)
Got to sit in the new Audi R8 V10, which I don't think is on sale yet...:

Have to say the RS6 station wagon felt nicer with those ridiculous race seats.
Anyway, the highlight: Koenigsegg was there but no CCXR Edition : ( but they did have a display model so that was cool.
Despite how the pictures look I actually have lost some weight since I got here. And gotten even handsomer. I know you thought it was impossible. But it wasn't. That's the Koenigsegg coat of arms there. Er whatev. I like this part much more:
It's a little ghost sticker that they put in the rear window of each car. They used to assemble them at an old Swedish air force base in a hanger er something. The ghost was the air squadron's mascot. So Koenigsegg adopted it. That old factory burnt down if I remember correctly, so they have some new digs, but kept the ghost. I think it looks badass cause it doesn't look badass, and yet is, thus amplifying the badassness.
If you are new to this blog, my humor is tongue in cheek. A lot of times you will not know I'm joking but I am. Also, WTF are you doing here? Please keep coming back! Join my other 3 fans! Please!
^^^^Sorry but it is pretty badass, hence the coolness of the non-badass mascot^^^^
The gauges were downright dainty tho, I'd be afraid to sneeze while driving, pretty sure they'd shatter.
The tires, however, were far from dainty. I'm not a big dude but my hands aren't small. I usetacould stretch pinky and index the top five frets on a full scale bass (still could if'n I had a bass to practice on). Thats a good 6-7 inches. The rear tires are at least a foot across. Prob 14 inches er so. Okay so I had to google it. They are 13.1889764 inches across. Google doesn't lie. And it measured them to the nearest half 100 millionth of an inch. With some alien technology I guess.

On a completely unrelated note we randomly stumbled upon a rabbit jumping competion a couple weeks ago:

If you look really closely and ignore the freaks that are participating in this you can probably JUST make out the little bunnies jumping over obstacles.
I was absolutely spellbound watching the rabbits running the obstacle course. For some stupid reason no one else was and I was drug away by the hair.
Gotta end this the only way I know how, with some poetry:

GIRLL WE OFF IN THIS G
FOGGIN WINDOWS UP
BLASTIN' THA RADIO
IN THE BACK A MY TRUCK
BOUNCIN' UP AN' DOWN
STROKE IT ROUND AN' ROUND
TO THE REMIX
WE JUS' THUGGIN' IT OUT

Fin

WOOOOOOO!!!

ATTA BOY SEBASTIAN!
I'm the dude at the bottom left. Sweartagod.

So the weekend kicked ass, mainly because of the dude up there, but Stockholm was pretty tight too. Nausicaa wasn't as sweet as I remembered, Miyazaki has done some much better stuff, but it was still worth seeing on the big screen. Carro's new apartment on Kungsholmen is really nice. I randomly saw one of the coolest dudes from work at the 7-11 around the corner from Carro's place when I went to get sugar for the cake we were making. Over 1 million people in Sthlm and I run into somebody I work with when I step out for like 5 minutes. It was cool though.

This weekend is shaping up to be awesome too. Fredrik and Gustav will come to Uppsala and we will all go to Flustret a.k.a. Jurassic. Frida will be in Gävle. Shaping up to be dudes night out #2. Too bad we won't have a 'bago named "The Warrior" that eight drunken assholes and a two hour drive at 2:30am couldn't kill. No, it took a tornado to do that. I don't think many involved in dude's night out #1 read this but, shouts out to you all. Legendary. Just legendary.

Oh, and a car show Friday night also. Not just any car show, like a supercar show supposedly. The website says even Weissmann will have a display there. WEISS MAN. I really really REALLY want to see a Koenigsegg CCX Edition. I think there's only like, what, 5 though? I dunno they'll have a display there and this IS the stupid country where they are made so I guess I got the best chance I'll ever get to see one in person. SWOON.

Nutmeg by ghostface ft. rza is the JOINT
C is the heavenly option by heavenly is also the JOINT
I'm really pissed I can't download shit right now because the list of shit I want just continues to grow and grow. And most of the shit I can't buy anyway so making it illegal for me to download it is pointless. You bastards!

Maybe more tomorrow. You bastards!

EPIC

WHOOOOOOOO VeeeeeeeeeeeTTEEEEEELLLLL!
Second pole of his F1 career today in China! Only had one lap to do it in Q3 and he pulled it off. WoOt!!! Dude is a monster! Red Bull WHAT!
Damn I can't believe it's been 13 days since I posted last.
Today we are going into Stockholm for the first time in quite a while. I get to go see my favorite Miyazaki (actually they are all my favorite *GUSH*) movie which is playing for some reason on the big screen in two theatres downtown. After that we will meet up with Frida's friend Carro. Hopefully there will be plenty of drinking after that, but probably not since after paying for the movie I'll be broke as a joke. Like $5 to my name broke. Getting paid once monthly sucks, especially when like 75% of it goes straight to bills by the next day. I was s'posed to be rich already, WTF? Guess I would be if I wasn't paying the way for other people. STUDENT people. Cough. Frida. Cough. Huh? She better make bank when she's done er her ass is out on the kerb.
Gotta go for now. Fika calls.

EN TILL

Couldn't help it, gotta post one more. Short. Since life is goooooood.

View off my back porch like 10 minutes ago.
Some of the neighbors have something called "Norwegian forest cats" that wander around down there (I saw one right after I took the pic). I'd never heard of that but I guess it's a real thing. Anyway those fuckers are HUGE! Ok I mean really maybe only a little bigger than any other house cat. Their feet really seem to be gigantic, I guess fer tree climbin' er something. Last time we saw two and one actually was in a tree. Then yesterday when I got home from work there was one stalking something in the neighbors yard and it's brown so I thought it was a wood pile. It was kinda like stretched out while it was standin' there and it really did look a lot bigger than a normal cat. Maybe just my imagination though. Anyway I really want one now so I can train it to climb the trees next door and then drop out of them onto people heads and claw their faces. Tight.
Actually screw that, there's these things here called lodjur a.k.a. Lynx in english. I guess a family of 'em have taken up residence somewhere around Uppsala (where we live). I need to capture one of those bitches and train it in the unholy arts:
Yeah BOYEE!!! Think about that bitch chargin' at ya and casting soul steal lvl 48!!! 50 pounds of running pissed off unholy awesome WILL knock you on your ass, I don't care if you're frickin' Chuck Norris. THAT'S THE JOINT!!! (photo courtesy wikipedia)

Back to chillin'

SANTA=SATAN

Just move the N! Think about it! Promise me you'll think about it! You ain't gonna think about it : (
VETTEL!!! REPRUZZZZZENT!!! WHAT WHAT!!! DATS MAH BOYEE!!!
Watched Låt Den Rätte Komma In the Swedish movie from last year that got 43 award nominations and 6 wins. It was aight. I guess all the nominations was cause peeps from other countries was jes happy Sweden made a decent movie... I just wrote like a 300 word essay about the isolation aesthetic in most Swedish movies and compared it to the movie Capote and presumably the book In Cold Blood and also the reality of Swedish society then read it back and realized how tragically boring it was so I deleted all of it.
Today I told Frida one of my brilliant plans. If my contract is not renewed in June I'll start training to row across the Atlantic. It takes about 90 days of 8-12 hours a day of rowing, and probably a good 8 months of training 10 hours a day before that since I've never rowed anything before in my life. (Wait does double fisting brews count as rowing? Nahh, prob not...) She had the balls to laugh at me. I'll show her good in exactly 11 months after June.
Pictures!
Norrviken station where in the few times I use the train to and from work (which sucks btw, although I'd say about 35% of the time you don't have to pay since they never come by to take your money, which is tiiiiiiight) I stop by.
There's m' train.
Frida's parents and granparents at our place on the weekend before my birthday.

All the stuff Frida baked me for my birthday not including cake! It was all really good. Carrot cake is my fav! Mmmmm!
Cake!!! that 28 is for 28/1.2 meaning I'm 23.3 years old! The /1.2 didn't fit!
The weather here is amazing today. The door is wide open and I'm wearing shorts!
The slightly longer than KS winter is more than worth it for this.
I gotta crack another beer now and drink it on the back porch, LATER FOOLS

2009-03-28

As usual no major self-discovery, stunning insight or earth shattering news. Amazingly I have actually done some stuff this week.
/update format

-Monday went to class and afterwards hung out with some dudes from my Swedish class, two greeks, a brit, and a dude from Cali(fornia).

-We discussed the public urination habits of Swedes. Verdict: Whole different sense of shame here. Whole different.

-We did discuss other more positive things about being in Sweden, but I'd rather mention the embarrasing stuff. Cause it's more interesting to read. No?

-I've developed a very positive opinion of Greeks after meeting several through the Swedish class I'm taking. The ones I have talked to are all hilarious. Or quite smart. And usually a very entertaining combination thereof.

-Not such a good opinion of Russian mail order brides (*cough*egotistical*cough*).

-I've heard the Finnish dude in class is really funny to hang out with. I think he makes a lot of money and travels a lot as some sort of business man. Only thing I know about him is he really likes Metallica and Iron Maiden. Oh and, amazingly, he must have worse vision than me since he has these THICK-ASS glasses, thickest I ever saw. If he was short and wrinkly he would look exactly like Hans Moleman.

-Back to Greeks, they talked about Soccer hooliganism quite a bit. Apparently football clubs in some countries are like thinly veiled and very effective parapolitical entities, with the fans like borderline mercenary armies. Apparently full circumvention of the political and legal process becomes a routine excercise. Who knew? I guess people who pay attention to European soccer. For example: you own of a football club and need to tear down and rezone a few square miles of a city for that massive new mall project that will net you billions of Euros and don't want to bother with things like "property law" or "protected historic buildings" or "taxes". Just tell the 20,000 fans of your club that pesky thing called the "government" is going to put an end to the team if you can't build your mall and thus afford to keep Pele on the payroll (or something like that). Massive protests. Problem solved. I probably butchered the example (which was just one true story from their hometown), but you kinda get the idea. The funny part was they were fully aware of this phenomenon, hated the corruption of it, yet at the very end of the story Vangelos, with a murderous glint in his eye, was all "BUT I STILL LOVE THAT TEAM DAMMIT!" Fascinating.

-Thursday we went to this bar in Stockholm that had a bunch of pool tables to play billiards and have a farewell party for the dudes that are retiring (on my birthday). They gave us a lesson on how to play and then we had this short tournament as teams of 2. I basically ruined me and Peters chances to win everytime. After the tournament the dude that gave the lesson did some pool tricks. He asked us first if we wanted to see some tricks. It was really odd cause it was exaclty like the end of that Simpsons episode when Mark McGwire is like "Who wants to see me hit some dingers!" er whatever. Kind of odd. I dunno I guess the tricks guy was famous er something (probably only in Sweden) cause his picture was on the wall a lot.

-Anyway we drank and ate on the company dime (I hope, cause I never paid fer nuthin'). I can't believe how unaccustomed I've become to the affects of alcohol. The dudes that were gonna retire were pretty drunk when we (the Uppsala guys) left. Aparently the Sthlm dudes went to another bar after that. And the bar after THAT bar wouldn't let them in cause they were all too drunk. Then everyone was there the next day and seemed to be in much better shape than me. I guess I've become as big a pussy as I had feared.

-Funny story from the billiards place. These two women came that apparently used to work for the company and are BIG cougars, I guess, judging from the one story that everyone was sure to tell me before they showed up. One word: cucumber. Fill in the rest yourself. Cause this is a family blog. You sick goddamn perverted fuckstains.

-FORMULA 1 STARTS TOMORROW!!! I've been really pumped and scouring the internet reading about it for months. All I can say is I REALLY REALLY wish I would have had the money to bet on this season. There won't be another chance to make as much off the underdogs for a long, long time. My boy Vettel qualified 3rd. Brawn GP took the pole and 2nd. Merc.-McClaren was garbage and Ferrari not a lot better. I want to make sweet love to Barichello and the Brawn cars while Richard Branson films it.

-That humor (humour?) was oddly British. I've thought a lot about how easy it is to parody British humour. Easy as madlibs. Observe:

"I'd expect to hear that from a (English city)ite with a (piece of clothing, hairstyle, or fashion accessory). You look like (English D list celebrity) after (embarrassing activity)"

"Americans are fat"

Cue uproarious Brit laughter.
It works every time without fail and every British joke follows one of those two templates.

Will post more and some pictures later tonight.

BRANIFF
Believe it!

New Stylezzz/Gold Soundzzz

Aight foo's vi ska försöka med det nya utseendet på bloggen nu, so skip to the sections (the big bold text) you are interested in, that way I can write as much as I want and not feel lame for the huge post since you can skip what you don't want to read about:

MUSIC

"Final Day" - Young Marble Giants
According to wikipedia the YMGs have some loose connection to Scritti Politti AND Nirvana which is helt bra eller/or hella cool in my book. This song is what I personally consider a "perfect song" and I can count on one or two hands the number of those I've heard, and I take the title of "perfect song" very seriously. A perfect song rating by me is completely independent of genre, topic, concept, lyrics, instruments, band, artists, whatever, you name it. Look, if Limp Bizkit and/or Coldplay created what was in my opinion a perfect song I would readily admit and celebrate it, though I'm 99.999% sure it'll never happen. Anyway, I usually highly dislike songs that sound all palm muted indie cool gayness (which p.s. this song was about 27 years ahead of that particular fashion) and yet it's somehow more than what's at the surface. Not a single misplaced sound, poorly chosen word, or wasted note in 1'42" of flawlessness that leaves you begging for more when it ends all too soon (kinda like, uh, LIFE?). Look, you may not agree and that's cool. We're still buds.

"Get By" - Talib Kweli
I never listened to Talib Kweli before this song (or after for that matter) yet somehow since my best homie Ryan told me Talib Kweli was the shit (and he also said Pete Yorn was the shit, so, ya know, take that with a grain of salt) I've just assumed he was. And Ryan was correct. This song brings all the hotness you can imagine. You like bass? You like rhymes? You like soul? You like idiosyncratic piano loops (I love 'em!)? It occurs to me just now that for some reason Ryan has much better taste in black boy music than in white boy music, which is really odd cause he makes some damn good white boy music. Can someone explain that to me?
"We rock like Paul McCartney/from now until the last beat'll drop"
Fuck yeah, you already did your job, and there's still two left.

While we are on the topic of explaining things to me, someone PLEASE explain to me why '93/'94 were by far the absolute best years for hip-hop? Has there ever been as productive a year (ya know, time frame wise) for any genre of music? I'm thinking motown could outstrip it if someone had the time/nerdiness to correct me. Do it, I'd love to know.

PICTURES

One tiny part of the lovely paper mill outside of Frida's hometown. You have no idea how bad this thing smells when it's working at normal capacity. Imagine feeding your baby indian food for a month straight then getting it drunk on cheap beer one night and then changing its diaper the next afternoon. What came out of the baby smells similar, yet way better than this thing, I promise you. Frida's parents' house is like 30 miles north of it but when the wind is wrong you won't want to go outside if you can help it. Frida just corrected me that there is a paper mill closer than this one that makes the smell at her parents house.
Does it matter?
Lots of snow in Gävle a few weeks ago. You can kind of tell from the picture if you look at the size of the car with respect to the snow piles. The snow plows make big ass mountains that don't melt usually, so if there is a few snow storms and no warm weather they just keep stacking up.
Snow pile in Frida's neighborhood.
Bridge over the river near Frida's house.
View from the bridge.

CULTURE

The amount of piss next to roadways and sidewalks is UNBELIEVABLE. You'd never know it in countries that don't have snow that sticks for weeks at a time, but apparently either people absolutely LOVE to park their cars and then pee right into the snow in front of them or a lot of people are bringing their dogs everywhere they go and not giving them enough breaks on the way. I dunno but the amount of yellow snow I've seen here is outrageous. Never touch the side of a road or sidewalk with anything but the soles of your shoes. That's all I gotta say.

Going to a concert on Sunday night in Stockholm. I'll try to take pictures and post them on here. It's exciting cause I haven't been to a real concert here yet and this one is at, as far as I can tell, a very hip bar in the very hip area of Stockholm (not the expensive hip area, the poor hip area... I can't afford expensive hip, basically no one can here). I'm planning on wearing my ugliest most unhip clothes to make sure everyone knows I'm not hip, so we'll see how that goes. I'd hate to be mistaken for someone cool in the cool part of town, ya know?

Konstig Vecka

Songs of the week:
-Dream On - Robyn w/ Ola Salo (evangelic indeed!)
-Epilepsy is Dancing - Antony and the Johnsons ([lyrics:music::wine:food] uhh, perfect match!)
-Graceland - Paul Simon (Tiiiiiggggghhhht)

Animal sightings to or from work:
-1 fox
-2 moose
-NO DEER!?!? Usually see like 60 a week, and no other animals.

Things from the USA I'm really missing right now:
-My copy of Watchmen (thinkin of having my parents send it to me CAN'T WAIT for the movie)
-ALL my Evangelion DVDs (I couldn't find some so didn't bring them back in Dec. :.( REGRET)
-Halo, to some extent (too heavy to bring back xbox)

The mechanical engineering dept. boss was gone this week so I guess everyone took it as a slack week cause there was almost no work for me to do. REALLY boring. Or possibly there just actually wasn't that much work. Here was my Thursday (NOT representative at all of a normal day, just the boringest day of this lame week):
Roll in with the Uppsala mafia at 8:00 sharp. Sign into computer. Open Inventor. Login to part database. Go to foxnews.com. Read pretty much every article. Go to CNN.com. Read pretty much every article. Oops, 9:01 late for coffee break. 9:35, continue reading CNN and move on to LJworld, pitchfork, and autoblog. Continue reading these websites whilst occasionally switching over to the Inventor window to grab the chain I'm modeling and swing it around like a whip a few times to make it look like im at least playing around with the program I should be using to accomplish "work". 11:28, put on jacket and go mill around in the hall outside the big boys room to make sure everyone knows it's lunchtime. Walk to Motor (what we call the lunch restaurant since its in the car dealership and all). Ismet asks me a little about Kansas. I answer with some lame 3 yr old level Swedish. Eat panbiff med indiska kryddor (like indian spiced meatloaf). Wasn't too disgusting as long as I avoided the big yellow puddle of grease that accumulated on one side of the plate (the restaurant is really cheap and cruddy, which is not typical here, but we go there cause engineers are generally stingy). Get back at around 12:30 and surf more internet. Get an email around 14:00 about a part that I messed with a couple months ago and didn't put into the database right when I was done fixing it. Start correcting my mistake. Christopher comes in and tells me since he doesn't really have much for me to do I may as well check every assembly I've ever put into the database to make sure I didn't make the same mistake on those (easier than it sounds). I thank jeebus I finally have something to keep busy. Last 2.5 hours are spent going through each assy I've checked in to make sure it is linked to it's part in the database. Amazingly out of about 75 there was only three I made the same mistake on! And it kept me doing something semi-worthwhile!

Really been thinking this week about somehow changing the format of the blog. These random unstructured posts really suck. But I guess since I'm sooooo lazy about updating that's just the way it goes. I'd really like to have some kind of more structured one topic posts, like music critique, culture update, pic post, work, freetime, etc. type thing. Maybe I'll try to do that.

About to go to "Buddy's", the Irish bar with the BEST BY FAR hamburgers I've had since I've been here. Gotta leave now. When I come back I'll continue this post. Keep that in mind if the, er, "tone" changes. IF YA KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

Back from Buddy's. The service there puts the rest of Sweden to shame. They actually moved 3 people from a 4 person table to a 3 person table so that they could fit the 4 of us in. In the first 2 minutes we were there, we were helped by 3 waiters. That is unheard of here. GREAT service. The hamburger was not as good as I remember, but still a 9.8 by Sweden standards.

Hey I knocked one out early Friday night so maybe I'll get to another one before the weekend is out. I'M GOIN' TO GRACELAND! MEMPHIS TENNESSEE!!

Sigh

During the week I always have these grand and profound ideas for things to post on here, you know deep meditations on Sweden, life, learning a new language, the nature of the universe in general. That type of garbage. Of course then when the weekend comes I can barely be bothered to actually sit down and write even though I have the time. Then when I actually do write something I'm usually preoccupied (or I been drankin') and it usually comes out half-assed and fairly boring. Sorry.
I found out on Friday that I finally get to move into the big boys room with the other mechanical engineers. I figured it was coming since there's two guys retiring next month and another in June, so there will actually be space for me, but I finally found out for sure at the engineering meeting. They've had me sitting in a room with three consultants, all of whom I really like, especially Peter, he's real cool. But I think the actual physical distance between me and the guys I'm supposed to be working with has been a big chunk of the vaguely "separate but equal" vibe everyone feels re me. Now we won't have to walk halfway across the building to talk to each other at least. And I'll get a bookshelf. Tight!
Well if I remember any of those super-insightful things I wanted to post over the last week maybe I'll make another post soon. Otherwise see you next weekend.

Pic megapost!

Watching:
Snow Buddies (no I'm not joking, I wanted to see it so piss off) - So terrible and yet so awesome! And so disturbingly similar to porn, I'm all "what's all this story crap, just get to the alaskan husky money shots!!!!"

Looking forward to:
GET HIM TO THE GREEK!!!!! - Aldous Snow is back... ON DRUGS FOOLS! AWESOME!

Listening to:
Pitchfork 500

And let's talk about that. FINALLY finished 497 of them (three didn't down... er I couldn't find them at the store, for some reason, but those bands/songs I had heard so wasn't missing anything). I had really hoped to find a ton of cool new stuff to check out. I found Antony and The Johnsons. That was pretty much it. OUTTA 500 SONGS! C'MON PITCHFORK! You're so much better than that. Anyway, if those were the best Animal Collective songs they could find then I'm glad I've never given them the time of day cause they blow goats and then yak onto the pony. There is some seriously boring shit on that list. There's also quite a few of what I would consider "the best songs ever" that I already loved. Then there's a lot of WTF is that doing on here? But the fact that Lightning Bolt, Brainiac, Slayer, Iron Maiden, and Les Savy Fav and quite a few other awesome bands that shouldn't have but did make the list made me quite happy. I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish (I get the Rolling Stone reference, besides that) but I guess it was something along the lines of add rap, raggae, and some of what they considered underappreciated "underground" songs by bands that you've already heard of but maybe never gave the particular song or album a chance. There is quite a bit of early hip hop that sounds terribly dated, never in a good way. No idea why it was included other than to be cool and "black it up" just for the sake of it. Not that that's a bad thing, there was a few songs falling in that category that I (sadly) had never heard that are freaking great (uhhh, "I Got 5 On It"?). Also; worst song: Rawhide by Scott Walker. WTF?? IT'S AWFUL. Was happy they included "Cry Me a River" by J.T., it's a good song. But Kelly Clarkson? C'mon, now you're just trying to be too slyly hipster ironic. And what's the deal with LCD Soundsystem? I get it, Talking Heads were a great band. Stop cloning their songs already. I mean yeah you can never go wrong, but it's still annoying. Anyway the whole thing just left me sorta confused after listening to it. And now if you aren't bored to death heres some pretty pichers!

I got my phone linking up to my computer again after months of it not working (STUPID GARBAGE WINDOWS VISTA) so I'll post some pics which are from several months ago and possibly summer. Or just tonight in the case of the first one. Sorry if there is repeats from my previous pic post. First in honor of my home slice Schultzzz:
Oh shit! Pretty face is goin' to HELL!
Next in honor of my bro Adam:
Care for some FAGOTTINI with you CHINA WANG?
Just some cool street art and concert poster from downtown Stockholm:
The view from the apartment we were staying in at the beginning of summer in Stockholm:
There's lots of rainbows here. Think it has something to do with the sun being at a low angle in the sky so much blah blah.
I so wish there was some blood dripping and pooling in the second pic. God that would be awesome.

Out.

SkIDReSAn!!!

So I went skiing for the first time ever (yes EVER) yesterday. I think my closest exposure to it until now was the South Park episode parodying late 80's ski resort movies. Er whatever. Speaking of which that episode is freaking super-classic. The payoff at the end??? "Quaaiiidd, start the reactor..." Brilliant!!!
Back to skiing. Wow. It is really really hard. And since EVERYONE here has done it since they are like 8 months old I looked like a complete doofus out there. There's like a baby slope with about a 5 degree gradient and little animal puppets that show the kids where to go, on which I assume the 8 month olds start out. Luckily for my self esteem I started on the next level up where the two years olds were skiing. I think it takes them roughly 45 seconds to reach the bottom of the slope. The first time I went down it took me literally 45 MINUTES, no exaggeration. I spent much of that time on the ground spitting out bloody snow and groaning about the pain in my legs. Ok, there was no blood really, but that's surprising. Little kids for whom it was entirely within their realm of possibilities that Santa Claus COULD be waiting for them at the bottom of the hill (with presents even) were flying by me at 60 mph, and looking way cooler than me in their ski gear while they did it. Anyway, 45 minutes later at the bottom, my whole body was shaking, my inner clothes were SOAKED with sweat, my outter clothes were covered in snow, and I felt that same pukey feeling like after you've run flat out until you, well, puke. I didn't puke and the next time down only took like 15 minutes. By the 5th time down I could kind of keep myself under control, and I only fell down like twice. Then it was time to leave. Next time I'm really hoping to reach bicycle speeds!

Erm

Listening to:
Beautiful Child - Swans (you won't like it, I promise... rest of the album sux anyway, older stuff seems much more promising)
Hot N Cold - Katy Perry (every damn morning)
Prayer to God - Shellac (so awesome)
Just a Friend - Biz Markie (how is this song this good?)

Playing:
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (mainly driving the F2007, the only car the game needs IMO!)

Watching:
No Reservations Season 5 (finally!!!!)

In the immortal words of the little japanese yakuza from the pretzel lady episode:
"Fuhgivuhness prease!"
Whatever spirits possessed me to write such a shameful post have run their course I assure you.
Not much happening lately. Back in Swedish course after winter holiday hiatus. Learning a completely foreign language in a different country truly is a unique experience. Hard to explain and even harder to imagine. I thought it would kind of be like discernible steps of progress towards some final goal. Totally not like that at all. It feels like 5 steps forward then 2 back then one to the left and one forward again, then 4 to the right then 3 backwards, then 2 more to the right, then 8 forward... Really confusing and frustrating. Like at the morning coffee break on Wednesday Anders was talking about music and the movie the Departed. I understood like 90% of everything he said NINETY FRICKIN' PERCENT. For instance, he said he was watching it with some Malaysians (don't ask) and at the scene when Frank trades the chinese triad dudes the computer chips er whatever the Malaysians laughed. When Anders asked why, they were like "Those obviously aren't chinese guys, they are mainly koreans." Then the next two days of work, for 16 hours I understand like 10% of everything said. How can I understand something so obscure as that and then nothing?! In class I can bust out with "I believe the dinosaurs died out around 260 million years ago when a giant meteorite impacted the earth which caused the sun not to shine which killed off lots of plants, which then killed off lots of plant eating dinosaurs which then killed off the meat eating dinosaurs." Then the rest of the week I've maybe strung together 3 coherent meaningful sentences, despite my best efforts. LORD KNOWS I'M TRYIN'. On the train I'm accidentally reading in Swedish about the new Upptåget train schedule I couldn't care less about without even thinking about it. Try to read about something I really want to understand in the newspaper... Oh sure I understand most of the words, but what meaning am I getting out of it? NONE. YARRRGGH. I mean I guess for only being here 7 or 8 months I'm making a lot of progress, but that means basically nothing when you can't understand everything 100% of the time, which is the entire POINT of having written and spoken language... If you can see where I'm going with that. Ya know, that whole efficient communication thing.
Oh well, I need to go sleep now. Write more soon.

Dr. Octo

Mental disorder, person and alias/
55.6 computer TRACKS on your ASSCRACKS

Things you don't know about me:

I was a minor cyber-meme-celeb back in 2003 or so. My wrandom writings were published anonymously in Harper's without my consent. But no one knew then, and only one maybe two of my closest friends have any idea... At any rate I apparently have a .se website dedicated to the legacy of those anonymous posts. Especially ironic now. I guess. If you know what I'm talking about send me a message.

"Hello big chief! Le's talk, why not?"

Out.

UpDaTE HOtTTtLINE # 9

Currently listening to:
-No Epiphany - Fucked Up
-Sunglasses at Night - Corey Hart
-Overpowered - Róisín Murphy
-Penetration - Iggy & The Stooges
-Seven Souls - Material

Currently playing:
-Fallout 3

Currently watching:
-Top Chef Season 5
-Top Gear
-Joy Division documentary
-Låt Den Rätte Komma In (or I would be if I could understand Sweden talk gooder : ( someday I will though...)

Wishing I could:
-Go to a batting cage, for some weird reason. I haven't since I was like 15 but I have this inexplicable craving lately

Going to:
-Hopefully goin to a club called Flustret, or as my work friend calls it "Jurassic Park". I've heard a lot about it and I think I'll go with my friend from Swedentalk class. I'm looking forward to it. Oh, and the name... I think in english we might call it "Cougarville" or somesuch. The age range is supposed to be like 14-65, full of lovelorn divorcees and junior high girls, making for a danceclub I actually really really want to go to.

All for now. I forsee at least two of the four people that read this getting a call from me this weekend. Look out!

GOD FORTSÄTTNING

New Year's Eve was great. We ate, drank, smoked, played games... For dinner we had Rudolph as an appetizer and Bambi for the entree. Yes, reindeer and deer (well elk). And, yes, I have been waiting over a week to say Rudolph and Bambi. Smoked cigars at midnight, with millions of fireworks going off everywhere and every church bell in the country ringing, it was awesome.

Anyway in the spirit of the new year here is my best of 2008 list. Actually it won't be in list form. Oh, and I reserve the right to use any year.

Comic strip of the year: Rocky. I think I've mentioned it before on here as a favorite for reading practice. I'm sure I'm violating any number of copyright laws by posting these examples here, but if you are about to prosecute... Just tell me and I'll remove them forthwith:


I didn't bother to fully decipher the first one but he's in Norway promoting his new book (the material for the strip is derived from his real life experiences mostly, and he is Swedish) and complaining about his fans and then later he's on the toilet and a fan sticks his hand under the stall to get an autograph. The second quite comical romp occurs at an in store book signing again on his book tour in Norway. A child (with the Norwegian flag on his hat and shirt) asks very politely in Norwegian for an autograph in a notebook and Rocky's Norwegian handler tells the kid to piss off cause Rocky is only signing "Rocky" books or "Rocky" magazines. The little kid runs away crying in Norwegian (Wæææ!). Rocky says "Yeah, yeah, run and buy the damn book for $600 and then get your ass to the end of the line, you all have oil here so you can fucking afford it!" Then a smoking hot teenage bitch (female dog!) asks if he can sign her shirt and his handler starts to say "he's only signing..." when Rocky lunges over the table and grabs the bitches shirt and says "These are my fans!!! They made me who I am today!!" Then the Norwegian handler says sarcastically "Sexually frustrated geek with hubris...?" Get it? HAHAHAHA!!! It's interesting because he often writes in different languages, showcasing the national propensity for multilinguality.

Anyway, next up on my "BeSt oF 2008!!!!" list: Michael Jackson: Thriller. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(album)
Do yourself a favor and read that. It was nothing short of a musical revolution. The Beatles (self-admittedly) put white faces on black music and cashed in, becoming what many consider the greatest musical act of the century. Elvis before them. FINALLY a black person was truly cashing in on his own music and not just being used as a means to a financial end for some bald fat sweaty white dudes who couldn't dance their way out of a wet paper sack. To think that only a little over 20 years ago MTV were scared to give a black person primetime exposure and had to be threatened before they would play his videos at all. MTV!! WTF?? Do they even have white people on there anymore? (I kid, I kid, I wouldn't know anway, I can't remember the last time I watched it)

In other 2008 music news, be sure to check out: "Give it away" by RHCP. The fact that that song pushed them into uber-stardom completely blows my mind. The song is nuts! Go back and listen to it again and ask yourself if you could ever have predicted that song would be a hit. If I had to guess before it became popular I would have said: "No way, it sounds retarded!" Retarded awesome! Radio stations refused to play it because it had "no melody". Seriously the song is awesome but in a completely idiosyncratic way. Maybe that's why people went crazy for it.

D.J. Shadow "Endtroducing". If you haven't heard it you suck. The first album EVER created entirely from samples of other people's music. FIRST EVER. Everybody does it now. Perpetually imitated, rarely equaled.

Favorite blog of the past few years: TOKYO DAMAGE REPORT.
www.hellodamage.com/tdr
I visit this site with damn near religiosity. I think it has all the mainstream appeal of Gorgoroth (oh, another good thing that actually is from this year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avnsgYvHPK8&feature=channel
watch TILL THE END, you won't regret it, and if you like it watch the other 4 parts) but if you are interested in Japanese culture and/or metal and/or have a little knowledge of either you will hopefully find the blog hilarious. Schultz is an absolute crazy looking GENIUS.

Coolest milieu of the year: Late '70s Miami cocaine culture, BEFORE the cuban/colombian wars. The amount of money made in the span of time and adjusted for inflation... Well I guess the current run of Ponzi scheme, sub-prime loan, and general regular workin' dude rapists probably have it beat by a long shot, but WHO HAD THE DISCO CLUBS?!?!?! HUH???? That's right. Plus it built a city, and DIDN'T ruin the worldwide economy, so it had that going for it!

I guess thats enough of that for now. My daily three hours of "me" time have dwindled to 30 minutes.

PEACE