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?