DVORAK

OK, so I just picked all the keys off my keyboard and rearranged in the Dvorak system.

Titta: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard

Going crazy.

My new ethos: get rid of QWERTY, get some ',.PYF!

MY WHOLE

BODY HURTS

On Monday it revealed to me that the immigrant school opens up the sports hall for a bit of footy on a Tuesday afternoon. My Nigerian friend Richard told me to come along if I wanted to. I said OK.

So we played football for about 2 hours. I scored a few goals, pretty much people walking in and thinking I was Lionel Messi, then walking out again.

The next day i woke up and had to slide out of bed like a snake, then I crawled to the toilet, like a crab.

That was wednesday, today is Thursday, and everything hurts even more.

Moral.

I am not Lionel Messi.

Finished London Fields by Martin Amis, very good, 5 stars would recommend great ebayer.

Halfway through Nabokov's Lolita. What an interesting book.

Something very courageous about it, they must have thought he was mad when he submitted it for publishing. Apparently though he did try to burn it once he had finished it, what a tragedy that would have been.

R.I.P. Unnamed digital thing

It is a sad day when a pet dies.

Even sadder is when the death feels almost completely preventable.

About five minutes ago I got up from reading my book and walked to the table thinking I should probably feed the tamagotchi and make sure he is happy.

But when I looked at it, instead of his cheery face and his little legs doing their little dance, I just saw a ghost next to a grave.

He had spent the thirteen long years of his life (thirteen earth days), flitting joyously from pocket to pocket to handbag and so on. Going with Martina and I wherever we went, calling to us with his infernal beeping, from behind zips and buttons, to play with him or clean up his excrement. He only slept a couple of nights with some poop beside his bed, and he very rarely got sick! He never caused us any trouble, and he was very well behaved, once his discipline meter was full that is, before that he was a bit of a tyke, but a playful one at that.

His time was cut short so suddenly that I think I am going to do something which I never do when tamagotchis die on me. I am going to press the reset button straight away.

Usually I disconnect the batteries for a year or so and forget about it in a drawer somewhere. But this time I think I still have a little more virtual parenting in me.

So here is me pouring out a lil liquor for my fallen virtual homie, and toasting the hatching of his... brother?

So

Rest In Peace Mr Unnamed Digital Thing

06-03-2010 - 18-03-2010

Verdi

So, the last couple of days I have been sick in bed with a cold. Not that much fun.

I think I caught it off one of the jabroni immigrants at school.

Sore throat, coughing, runny nose all that inte sa mycket bra stuff.

Went outside for a walk today because it has been warmer the last couple of days, up in the balmy plus degreeses.

Thing is, this means that the snow is turning to water so everywhere is really puddly.

Also it means that the huge amounts of snow which are collected on rooftops everywhere are beginning to melt.

In some places, where people haven't bothered to get on the roof and knock it all off of there, it presents a very real risk to ones life.

A woman in a nearby town had her arm broken the other day by a piece of ice falling off of a roof.

No thanks. When you see the chunks of ice which they knock off the roof, it is quite frightening, they are basically anything upto the size of a car bonnet, and six inches thick. Enough to put you in the sjukhus.

I went to Sundsvall's crazy video shop today by the seafront. It is called Videorama. I was quite impressed. They had everything from Asian super obscure gore flicks, to Holy Mountain, to blaxploitation movies, on dvd, vhs and whatever else. They also sold N64 games and operas on cd. I purchased Verdi's Aida, in a 2 cd box set and listened to it in bed with my sunglasses on under a blanket, blowing my nose and reading the synopsis with a cup of tea. It was unbelievable. Track 12 is 2:31 of pure joy.

Arsenal vs Porto tonight on tv. Have £2 on Vermaelen to score at any time at 6/1 and arsenal to win if it goes to penalties, £2 at 25/1. A scary and depressing thought I know, but I thought I might as well bung on 2 quid and when we win on penalties I will win £50 as well.

Come on Arsenal!

Second post in as many days as promised!

The supermarkets in sweden are called ICA and coop. ICA is in no way affiliated with the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.

Yeah, so today, just now, we went to ICA and they were giving away so many free samples of grub. It must be free sample fursday or something. I had some goulash, some Pucko chocolate milk, some thai style rice and chicken thing, and some kind of rice with a creamy sausagey sauce. It was lovely. It was great, I would ask them in my best schoolboy Swedish, "Hej, kan jag prova det?" - "Hey can I try that?"

"MMmmm det smaka god!" - "MMmmm that tastes good!".

ALSO!

I watched this episode of the Simpsons today:

Which I had completely forgotten about, and which is in my opinion one of the all time classics.

From Series 3!

http://www.wtso.net/movie/172-The_Simpsons_303_When_Flanders_Failed.html

ICA related footnote

The real ICA in london just got a mention in the book I am reading, London Fields by Martin Amis. It is sited as being one of the places in london one of the characters goes to to pick up celebrities. Maybe in the eighties Martin! haha

Bra

P1070471.jpg
Originally uploaded by Jacksonon

OK

Been doing things.

Not updating my blog.

Been reading books.

Getting diesel in the gym.

Pizza parties.

Saunas.

Snow.

Making short movies (expect youtube updates :D)

I am going to start updating this every day, so this entry is going to be very short:

There is a woman in my class at school who only has one eye. She is from Somalia I think, and doesn't wear an eye patch or anything.

Also:

Ajvar

That is all, till tomorrow.

RADIO GOLD

Yes.

This was my birthday pie.

So we have had snow.

A lot of it. In a lot of places it is 4 foot deep, like in the sports field in Nacksta, which I walk across to get to school, it is up to my thighs..

A few things:

Snickers bars

-25 outside

Series 2 of Mad Men

Reading books

Getting diesel

Baking baguettes

Homemade chocolate mousse

Going into shops just to warm up a bit

Looking at the THERMO Meter!® seeing it say -23c and deciding not to leave the house

HOMEMADE SEMLA:

Ok, what is the best thing about almond croissants?

It is the sugary almondy paste right?

RIGHT?!

Well check it out, they sell that in tubes here!:

Yo, you can eat it on its own, on toast, in your porridge, on a steak wherever!

That is half the end slice of it there on the chopping board.

The swedes like to eat is in a cake bun thing called Semla.

And it looks like this when it is upside down and you are half way through eating it:

So what you do, is you get these special cardomon flavoured soft semla buns and you chop one in half like a burger bun, then, you squish the middle of the bottom half down a bit to make a kind of well for you almondy s-s-s-s-s-s-sweetness. (which you can mix with a bit of milk or water to soften up a bit.)

Then you smear it all over the inside of the bun, plentifully filling the well, THEN you pile high with freshly whipped cream, and replace the lid. Eat with a cup of Earl Grey tea, and you are onto a massive winner. Oh god, I wish I had another one right NOW!

What else?

Oh yeah, I haven't smoked since my birthday, which is quite nice for some reason.

I had one cigarette when Arsenal got beaten by Utd on sunday, but other than that I have been doing quite well.

It is something which I have been thinking about quite a lot this week. Once you get over the first few days it really isn't that bad. I realise that I am not the smoker that Max is for example, but I still consider it very doable. I was able to run for a lot longer than I usually am at the gym yesterday, and I put it down to not gretting.

I believe that the approach to smoking in 2010 should be that of a person who smokes as a pastime as opposed to an addiction or habit. It should be a treat, and treated in the same way as eating fast food for example, or drinking expensive champagne.

It should be something which is revered and respected, and enjoyed accordingly.

Something a bit naughty to reward oneself with as opposed to being enslaved by.

I think the key to giving up smoking is to have this attitude. It should be something which you allow yourself to do when you choose to, not when you feel like you have to.

I know Max is going to chime in with something like, "yeah, I just feel like I should give myself a treat every other 2o minutes or so".

And I don't mean, only smoking at the weekends or something, but smoking in that kind of Tony Soprano fashion, where you never see him smoking, except when there is a cigarette packet on the dashboard of a car and he will say "may I?" and that is it.

Yeah.

Handball

Is the biggest load of garbage I have ever seen in my entire life.

It is one of three sports which they show live on tv here in sweden.

It is played by megahomo jibronies who were obviously too shit at any other sport.

It takes so little skill it is unbelievable. They score goals by standing about 5 feet away from the goal, which is QUITE BIG, and THROWING the ball past the goalie who doesn't stand any kind of chance whatsoever. WHAT SO EVER. The ball is sized somewhere between a volleyball and a tennis ball, so you can easily hold it and throw it very hard past someone standing 5 feet away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1CgA1LgR-I This video. Just watch the poor goalkeepers.

The way they congratulate eachother, and the way the pundits on swedish tv go on about how great the game was is just laughable.

BOOM THERE GOES ANOTHER WEEK

YESTERDAY WAS MY BIRTHDAY

I turned 25. I am now officially old.

Old man old man.

Had one of the nicest birthdays I have had in a few years though. Nothing special happened.

Me and the missus stayed in and ate veggie burgers and drank vanilla vodka and cokes.

Gavelli had made me a lemon meringe pie instead of a birthday cake, which was one of the best things ever. Although after the burgers and fizzy pop, I felt like a kid at a party OD'ing on sucrose.

Then we watched Mean Streets. "Jap adapters?". Haha

Didn't have any candles on my birthday pie because I am too old it would seem.

Scumbags.

Wednesday evening was quite win. Went to a karaoke bar in town, with the cheapest booze I have encountered in Sundsvall. about £2.50 a pint. The thing is, if you have booze that cheap, you attract a strange crowd, and this place was absolutely heaving, till 2am... on a Wednesday!

And I am not talking about it being full of student jibronies, I am talking about full of grown ups, weird grown ups admittedly. Cheap booze and karaoke makes for some weird scenes sometimes. Apparently I was molested by some strange 50 year old woman whilst singing charmless man by blur. I had no idea what was going on at the time because I guess I was too in the karaoke zone, but apparently it was quite frightening. That karaoke zone is a strange place, once you are in there and following those lyrics changing colour, the whole bar could burn to the ground and you wouldn't notice. Only really when it says [INSTRUMENTAL 13 seconds] do you get a chance to look around and see if anyone is watching you. Which apparently everyone was, aghast. When I finished everyone cheered. I thought it was for my performance, but I found out the next day it was probably because of the gross out side show. I don't know. I like to think it was because of my awesome rendition.

Have joined the local gym. Which is called Friskis och Svettis. Frisky and sweaty. Sweaty. Yes.

I got on the treadmill and ran a kilometer on the number 12 setting. I don't know if you have ever been on one of these before, but let me tell you, when you get off of it, it feels like the whole world is speeding past you. So sweaty. So yea, after a while I ran another kilometer, then whined to Martina that I wanted to go home. The next day I couldn't walk, in fact, for the next few days I couldn't walk. Damned physical exertion.

Woah, time goes fast.

So I have been here nearly a week now already.

A week at school with the immigints has just ended.

They are all exactly as they were before. Minus a few.

And we have all been rehoused down the road to a renovated proper school building, instead of the office block we were in before.

My journey, just to finish up, ended in a train journey across some beautiful vistas, and me watching the first two episodes of Jersey Shore. Sweet mother of mercy. I am going to have to watch a couple more of those.

I arrived in Sundsvall at about 1700.

So that was approximately 990 miles (as the crow flies), in 13 hours for £120 all in. Not bad.

So yeah.

I may have mentioned this before, but it is so cold here.

It is currently -15 according to my dashboard weather widget.

That is the kind of cold that if you take your glove off to make a phone call, within a minute you fingers are uncomfortably cold, and will take three or four minutes inside you glove to get back to normal. Forget leaving the house without your long johns on too. Even if you are covered up and insulated your face still gets frozen to the point of numb lips and nose. And I saw an old guy walking down the road the other day with an icicle hanging from his nose. AN ICICLE.

Anyway, yeah it is cold, get on with it.

Highlights:

Home made curryworst

Home made LEMON CURD OH GOD

Frozen lakes

Walking singing along to rap music as loud as I want with no one else on the street at any time of day.

Making my classmates laugh with my English sense of humour.

Having a carrier bag in the kitchen with 250 tea bags in it. (yes going to need more at some point)

Having the time to sit down and put together a music video.

Getting stuck in to DVD boxsets.

Having the time to cook delicious things.

Rum and ginger beer.

Yeah, highlights indeed.

Bonus:

This is a picture of where I live.

Notice how the sky is so pink. It is like that for about an hour a day. It is fantastic. The light is so soft and gentle. LOOK AT THE SNOW AARGH.

OUT

Swedish Adventure PART 2 Post XMAS

OK!

So, my journey started by me getting into bed at midnight on friday night. After having wrestled for 5 hours with a suitcase, some bathroom scales and the threat of a Ryanair baggage weight charge of £20 per kilo over 15, and my case weighing, by the bathroom scales 16.

I am not very good at packing, nor am I very good at managing my time. Knowing full well that I would have to be leaving my house at 0300 saturday morning, I still ended up going to bed at midnight, probably due to me having spent 2 of the hours between eight and then playing call of duty and watching celebrity big brother.

Anyways, as it turned out it was pretty pointless going to bed because I only slept about a total of 40 mins anyway, which I probably could have done without.

Here is me at 0302 Saturday morning:

I got my suitcase and went out into the street thinking I would get a bus to Liverpool St to catch my coach to Stansted, but I had failed to realise that I would be walking out into 3am Friday night Camden Town. I took one look at the bus stop and realised the full extent of my underestimations. Knowing from past experience how difficult it is to get a night bus through east London even when you don't have to be anywhere on time. I decided to shoot for the cab office. This was a slightly worse idea. The queue was around the block. I was starting to panic at this point, and realising that it was now 0310 and my coach was leaving in 30 mins and that any hold up at the cab office would cost me my coach journey and more extremely, my flight. I marched straight to the front of the queue, past drunk Irish women, goths and babbling Danny Dyeralikes, dragging my suitcase and went through the door to the booth and said "Hi, my name is Jackson and I have a booking for a cab to Liverpool Street RIGHT NOW" Looking the controller dead in the eyes. He glanced at my suitcase, paused, and then said, "yes sir, it is waiting outside." I thanked him sincerely for being so understanding, and got in the cab.

Fast forward to the queue for security at the airport, pausing briefly for a couple of moments such as my suitcase weighing 15.9 kilos and me not getting fined, and the coach driver telling an african lady that a return trip to stansted cost £15, her agreeing to buy one, then him changing it to £17 and her deciding she didn't want to go any more.

All my stuff was correct in the queue for security, my phone, keys, wallet and belt were in my rucksack, my laptop was out of its case, in my hand. Got to the machine put it in one of the trays with my jacket, offered to take my shoes off, walked through the metal detector, no beeping. Picked up my things and put myself back together, nodded to the Jamaican looking security bag searching guy and off i went. Looked at my watch 0525, time for a pee and a sandwich and maybe a bit of browsing at the shops. Went for a pee, washed my hands, spotted prets and went to get myself an allday breakfast. Oops! Better just check my boarding pass to make sure I won't have to walk for miles to my gate... boarding pass... hmm, not in that pocket, not in that pocket, not in that pocket... hmm, ok bag off, not in bag... ok, get all those crappy bits of paper out of the pockets, ok not in that pocket, not in that pocket, not in that pocket... Oh jesus. Ok, fine, retracing steps o'clock. Back to the toilets, hi, yes, just me just looking, around, looking around, sinks? nope not there, not under the urinal, nope, hmmmmm. Check the bin incase someone threw it away? Nope, bin has just been emptied. Back to security then. Went over to the Jamaican- "MISTAH WHAYT!" -Oh thank god. "YOUR BOARDIN PASS IS OVER DERE AT THA DESK MON"

The second absolute result of the journey.

SO.

The flight was a cinch. Even managed to catch a bit of shut eye.

Getting off the plane was a shock because it was SO cold.

Like the air hitting the top of your lungs uncomfortably cold.

The 1 minute walk to the terminal building left me with frozen toes and ears.

Waiting around for buses to turn up in this weather is absolutely retarded.

So I managed to get myself into such a state for the next leg of my journey. I went into the train station near the airport at Våsteras thinking I could go for a pee, because my last one was at 0525 and it was now 1100. There didn't seem to be a toilet that you didn't have to pay for. So I didn't bother, fully in the knowledge that I was going to be on a bus for nearly two hours. Stood outside waiting for a bus, looking at this frozen solid bottle of water:

and this:

Anyway.

Got on the bus with the coldest feet ever, put on my composer of the week bbc radio 3 podcast and sat there for nearly two hours needing a pee like you would never believe, wriggling my toes and looking out the window at this kind of thing:

Wow spectacular.

I am sure this is all getting a bit TL:DR for you now, and for those of you dieing to know, the composer of the week was Piazzolla. Fascinating guy.