It's a helluva jubblytown

Update: B-Roq and Steve, I just spoke to Guro, aka bananawoman, who is currently in the jungle in india, fending off tigers (some of her photos, noice!). I asked if we're going to Rondane (the mountain resort). Her response was:

maybe
probably\gotta go home and check waht parents are doing!
will get back to u
practise swedish
no english!
will fix it
ok bye

So, umm, yeah. Make of that what you will.

Some more pix from Nueva York, and some stories to go with them.

First up, here's me and Paul outside my favourite place in NYC (after steve's futon):



Neptunes, the Polish-American restaurant on 1st and 12th (I think?), just up the road from steve's. They have great food, cheap prices, and terrible, but friendly, service! The waitresses can't understand what you say, and they all have thick accents, and usually some sort of speech impediment. You order one thing, get another, and when the bill comes you've been charged for something else entirely!

I strongly recommend it to anyone who visits the big apple.

Little known fact: this restaurant is where the multi-grammy-award-winning productucers got their name*

Next pic: kicking the Sherrin round in Central Park, Paul attracts the attention of a slightly over-zealous German Shepherd.



Now a true story about Paul and Sarah's wedding. Doing the standard wedding shots, the photographer asked paul if he could pick Sarah and hold her for a photo. Well, he couldn't, but sarah could pick him up, so they did them that way round instead!



Three men and a bucket of pretzels, watching Kath and Kim DVDs while the girls go shopping: "I don't want to be working class, I want to be effluent, mum, effluent!" "You are effluent, Kimmy."



Jess, bless her soul, does a fantastic impression of TEEEEETH with the aid of some chocolate pudding. Where's Neil when you need him??



That's enough for now. Hmm, it's minus 13 outside, and I gotta walk home yet...

* - may not actually be true (copyright KT)

I apologize for my filthy hands, but I've just been using them to wash my face.

Updated Update: Ooh, it's evening now, and the fat snow is falling thickly, like feathers after a pillow fight between lingerie models. Can't wait for tomorrow!

Update: I walked down to the river just south of my apartment yesterday, and it was starting to freeze over. Here's a couple of pix:





(Note: these sunset photos were taken at about 1pm!!!)

At christmas time the Swedes are mad for candles. Someone even went to the trouble of lighting a whole row of candles along a highway:




To compete with B-Roq's posting of Sixxmixxes, I feel compelled to pull out the big guns.

Enjoy

38 meg, but well worth it. Perhaps only comparable to David Hasselhoff's work as Boner in Revenge of the Cheerleaders.

If you're having trouble following the dance moves, I can't recommend this instructional video highly enough. Make sure you wait until the music kicks in at 2 minutes. (I think it's Norwegian, which shouldn't surprise too many of you.)

A piece of trivia from IMDB about Dr Strangelove:

Peter Sellers was cast in four roles, but experienced problems when trying to develop a Texas accent for Major T. J. King Kong. After Sellers coincidentally broke his leg, Kubrick was forced to find another actor. Convinced that nobody could have acted the part as well as Sellers, Kubrick decided to cast someone who naturally fit the role. Remembering his work on the western One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Kubrick cast Slim Pickens as Kong, the gung-ho hick pilot determined to drop his bombs at any cost. Pickens was never shown the script nor told it was a black comedy; ordered by Kubrick to play it straight, he played the role as if it were a serious drama - with amusing results.

Now, am I the only person who suspects that Miranda Devine holds her position as "columnist" with the Sydney Morning Herald under a similar arrangement? Well, whatever the case, she's hilarious!

Beer: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems

At approx 10 AUD each, beers are too expensive in Stockholm for a pub crawl. So Sammy and I instead went on (or, rather, created) an "illegal public consumption of alcohol tour". At the time we didn't know for sure if it was illegal, but the strange looks we got from others on the street gave us some hints.

This was, of course, followed by an "illegal public urination tour", necessitated by the 5 Kronor fees to use public toilets. (about 1 dollar. More than I'm prepared to pay.)

The next day, with more illegal public drinking, we succeeded in a long-planned and much talked about mission: to drink VB wearing an Aussie t-shirt and a Viking helmet in the middle of Stockholm!

The photo below was taken by Jen at the Stockholm equivalent of Pitt St Mall. It's either a complete fluke or some quick thinking by Jen that the VB bottles line up with the point of convergence of everything else, it was not preplanned.

Plundera Mate!
That's Swedish (or at least Norwegian) for "Lay waste to neighbouring kingdoms, mate!"

Steve, now you know why I had the Aus shirts and viking helmets in NY.

The lovely girl at the Bottle'O near our hostel did a search on the computer database of all bottle shops in Stockholm to find one which had VB in stock, and eventually found one across the other side of town. I made a mad dash, changing trains twice and sprinting down several streets to purchase some, whilst Sammy tried desperately to get a visa sorted out for his trip to Thailand. We met with 20 minutes to spare before I had to go to the airport for my flight, just enough time to enjoy a nice warm VB!!

Mission: successful

In other news, Advent has started here, it being 1 month until Christmas. We had a nice little violin duo serenade us at afternoon tea today. In the foreground, in red, is my Bolivian mate Pedro.

More NYC photos, plus Kiruna photos, to come.

Tofu Can-on.

Sorry for the radio silence, friends. I'm back in Umeå now, but in a couple of hours I fly up to the arctic. Actually got just two days and a pretty tight schedule up there, so I'm not sure if I'll get any sightseeing done, but if all goes well I should be going up there a few more times.

Nueva York: Hilarious. Having done all the sightseeingy stuff on the last trip, this one we mostly saw the insides of bars.

Some of the fine beverages we enjoyed in Nueva York.
Hilarious beverage containers seems to be a theme developing on this here blog. But there's been absolutely no image-doctoring on these ones, honestly!!

Paul and Sarah have found bliss in married life. One of the first things I heard out of Sarah's mouth (with which she kisses her mother) was: "Paul, stop it! We're on our honeymoon! Be affectionate, fuckface!!"

Best shirt ever! (Sarah gave it to Paul at the start of their honeymoon)

Also got to meet Steve's girly Jess for the first time and, as per all reports, she was just lovely. If one quote can sum up a person, it could only be when she said "Some people think Steve and I sing to each other too much, but we're just happy people".

Steve (aka LB) and Jess. Steve is modelling one of the new range of J-Crew headbands

The only thing that worries me about her is she doesn't like Steve's boobies. She even suggested to him that if he did some push-ups they'd go away. I mean, we tell him the same thing, but as a warning against doing push-ups. Hopefully they can work through it verbally, without any undue harm coming to the jubblies.

More photos of the NY trip coming soon, when I get back from Kiruna.

Yesterday I landed in Stockholm and met up with Sammy and Jen from the dive club, and we were successful in a mission of great daring and bravery, the details of which I can't reveal until the time is ripe. That is, until Sammy sends me the photos. My camera battery had died by then and I forgot to bring my charger.

New York's THAT-A-WAY!

Thanks kid!

From left to right: Paul, Sarah, Me, and Steve.

There can never be suprises in logic. In logic process and result are equivalent.

Buggrit. It appears that I can only say what I want to say if I allow transmission codes of ever increasing length, which I definitely don't want to do, or assume some kind of space-homogeneity of a mapping that I was trying to keep as general as possible, which would make it almost linear, which is not nice either, but would probably be the lesser of two evils. I'm now questioning whether this stuff should be submitted to the Tromsø meeting at all, or if I should make a significant retreat to humbler and much less interesting territory. In summary, I present the following emoticon :-(

Of course the post title is quoted ironically - It is strangely difficult, having proven something is impossible, having run up against a wall, to simply take note of it and change direction, and keep moving. Maybe that's one of the skills a theorist needs to develop?

For those who don't care about such problems, I present the following enoyable snippet from serial ghost-reader, occasional unwitting contributor, and generous and always charming host to London's beurocratically downtrodden, Jo H.

You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.

Umeå Graffiti

I flicked on the telly last night, and evidently a movie was just beginning. I saw "Touchstone Pictures Presents".... "A Somebody or Other Film".... and then I saw "Goldie Hawn" and I winced like a stabbed puppy at the sight of that horrific name.

But it reminded me of something funny, which I will now share. Back when Adam and Will were breakfast announcers on JJJ, through some miracle never to be repeated, they secured an interview with Mr Mel Gibson. Will said something like "Now, you've been in a lot of hit movies, and obviously financially you're quite successful now",
Mel: "Uh huh",
Will: "Okay, then can you give me back the $10.50 I spent seeing Bird on a Wire, because that was a really shit movie".
Dead silence.
The interview was quite hastily wrapped up from there. Oh how I laughed!

In other news, we had a journalist and photographer from the biggest magazine in the region come to visit our lab the other day, so probably in a few weeks we'll all be superstars, and I'll be able to buy you all Bentleys and diamonds and swimming pools full of expensive champagne. Well, at least goon. It would make a change from drinking it from the Hills Hoist. (Goon of Fortune: Australia's Favourite Game! - I love it how that falls under the Wikipedia category of "Australian culture". Who says we don't have any culture, eh?!?!)

Not much else to report, except that I'm busy busy trying to get a draft of this topological entropy guff done before I head to New York on Thursday.

That Oscar Wilde quote that I believe ceedy suggested on Mat's blog back in the day, which I'll repeat here for those in my readership but not his, seems very appropriate:

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.

Lamb and music tv

Newspapers, current affairs shows, syndicated columnist, hobos on trains, what have they got in common? In recent weeks, they've all been talking incessantly about two of the most important issues that modern society has ever faced: Availability of lamb in nordic countries, and stupid crap on Swedish music TV. This post adds a little more to the already voluminous literature on each.

1) Lamb. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. But first some background: If anyone read the article about Jervis Bay, and was wondering what the crap about suckling baby lambs at the end meant, basically it was a fairly accurate rendering of life at Soelvi's family's house. They have a small sheep farm, and sometimes when too many lambs are born, they have to feed them with baby's bottles, cuddling them in front of a fireplace, and her mum really does spin wool from rabbit hair. She told me about this at Jervis bay, hence its inclusion in that article.

Now the news: In a recent email to her about my Christmas visit, I reminded her of this rather sweet image I've carried with me since Jervis, and she replied: "Remember that there is no little lambs running around at Christmastime. Thats when we eat them!"

I was shattered, disillusioned, kinda like Lisa in that episode "Li-i-i-sa, I thought you lo-o-o-ved me-e-eee!". But I like the taste of lamb far too much for that to stop me.

Jimmy: Uhh, Mr. McClure? I have a crazy friend who says it's wrong to eat meat. Is he crazy?
Troy: No, just ignorant. You see, your crazy friend never heard of "The Food Chain." Just ask this scientician.
Scientician: Uh…

Norway is the promised land, it seems, where my current culinary conundrum will be resolved.

2) Stupid crap on swedish music tv. Because I'm not completely up to speed with the language yet, with some things I see on TV, I'm not quite sure if they're supposed to be funny, tongue in cheek sorta, or if they're serious. Two examples:

a) Last night, watching some MTV whilst reading up on topological entropy (yet another nugget of genius stemming from the work of Kolmogorov), they showed a David Hasselhoff video clip. Just in amongst usual clips from Kanye West, Green Day, and what have you. Joke? I honestly don't know.

b) Later on, they had a "80's top ten". People had texted in votes for their favourite video clips from that most shoulder-padded of decades. Surely Michael Jackson is up there, you say? In that decade he could do no wrong! No, not one song from him, but Milli Vanilli came in at number 3. A joke? Again, I honestly don't know.

As TISM said, in a desperate plea that obviously resonated with the Swedish heart-strings:

Don't want no Peppers, Red Hot Chilli,
I want Milli Vanilli.
Don't want push boulder up no hilly,
I want Milli Vanilli

In other news, I'm finally knee deep in an interesting theoretical problem again, the kind of situation where it's possible I might actually do some constructive work, a situation which seems to come about roughly once per year. And yes, it's to do with topological entropy. And network information theory. Hoping to get something done by 30th of November, for that conference in Tromsø.

What can I say?

This country just keeps delivering the goods:



That's the name of the saturday morning video-hits style show.
No doctoring on that image!

Negative shadows flicker green behind the edges of everything

UPDATE:

• I'd like to second KT's motion regarding anonymous readers. Particularly, how bout some news about the wedding? "Can-on" and enjoyable work from MC Dave, is all I've really heard. I did try to call during the reception, but paul's mob went to voicemail.
• On Saturday I cooked a kick arse afghani chicken and spinach dish, based on this, but modified because of my inability to find lamb in this strange country. Restaurant scene in this town is pretty optional, home cooking is definitely the way of the future.
  
• Afterwards I went to a Halloween party, which then moved to X3M (like a moth to a flame). I got invited to dancing lessons next friday... Not sure what it was about my dancing that made people think "professional instruction required", but there you go.
  

Aurora over Kiruna.
(Not taken by me, more jubblies here.)

Just one interesting piece of news: On November 23rd, I will be entering the arctic circle for the first time in my life. I will be visiting a company in Kiruna in far north Sweden, home of the ice hotel and, in favourable conditions, a prime spot for viewing the northern lights.

But I'm currently bum-sideways with work of a more technical and less blog-amenable nature, so perhaps it's a good time to don the reflective sunglasses, twist the neck and squint back into the auroral oeuvre that is left hovering, like a plasma pheromone trail, over all the lands I pass.

What I mean is, here's some old stories. Three times this past year I wrote articles for the dive club newsletter about trips, and maybe some non-dive people would like to read them to gain some insight into just what goes on, and hopefully have a bit of a laugh.

Great Barrier Reef, Jan 2005

Jervis Bay, Easter 2005

Underwater photography (okay, I lied, that one's not about a trip).

so taken that you and I, and death, and life, will be gathered inseparable, into the radiance of what we would become ...

Paul and Sarah get married this weekend (I think??? Left the invite in oz). I wish them my most hearty swedish congratulations. Rambling 208 page stream-of-consciousness monologue to follow.

One of the big downsides of my move to Sweden is that I can't make it to their wedding, but I will be joining them on their honeymoon (I love the reaction I get when I tell people that). Well, at least for part of it. They're going on a world tour, and I'm going to hook up with them in New York, along with Steve (aka Lil' B).

Paul is on the left, with me, Matt and Melinda

I realised I don't actually have a pic of Sarah on my computer. That goes to show the relative camera-happiness of my different social groups. I've got arse-loads from the reef and dive trips, and thanks to Mandy a good chunk from uni, but none from school group outings. In fact, that pic above is from Mandy, when both school and uni friends met at the Lord Nelson, some time in the distant past.

Jag är pretty dang busy at work now, I have a conference-paper deadline on 30th of Novemeber, and If I'm going to meet P, S and LB in NYC in a couple weeks, I've gotta get it done quick smart.

Regress to point form for local news:

• My boss here suggested that in about 6 months I go on a mini lecture tour around the universities of Sweden, presenting my thesis work and what I'm doing here, sounds cool!

• Sweden is going wild with the news that "Waterloo" has been voted the best song in the 50 year history of the Eurovision Song Contest. It's fair to say that Swedes cling to the glory of ABBA like the Egyptians cling to the glory of pyramids, and the age of pharaos. I think it's also fair to say that modern Swedish music is comparable to modern Egyptian construction (that's not a good thing).

• After a few days of beautiful snow, it's now about 8-10 degrees and rainy. What is this, England? Where's this -37 degree weather I've heard about? 10 degrees and rainy feels downright tropical, monsoon rainy season, even.
  

• And for those who can only satiated by footage of human injury, here, courtesy of Gus, is a human catapult.