Det snöar alltid

Well, any equivocation about going to this design school party tomorrow has just dissappeared. I found out for 50 kronor ($10 aussie) you get entry and four beers. Considering that's usually the price of one beer... what's Swedish for 'Giddy up'?

Since I got back to Sweden, up until my ski trip, it had been blue skies, melting snow revealing dog turds, birds singing, spring was definitely on its way. But all this week it's been snowing consistently, 60cm added to base so far.

That's all I have to say at this point in time.

I'll leave you with the following passage from the highly esteemed televisual experience, My Name is Earl:

Earl: How was your first day of school?
Randy: Great! I really enjoyed science class. Did you know that before we were humans we were monkeys?
Earl: Really? What were we before monkeys?
Randy: I don't know. I can't even remember being a monkey.

Åre you ready to rock and/or roll????

Åre ski trip: big success, 100% like a government chicken.

I was skeptical at first, noticing that I was the only one flying solo, all others came in groups of 2 or 3. But I didn't let that stop me, I imposed myself on several different groups, obliging them to speak english around me, and I quickly identified knobs and jubblies, and worked the jubbly angle and formed strategic allegiences for the rest of the weekend.

Results: spent most of the time hanging out with a couple of Norwegian girls studying medicine. (what are the odds?)

Also enjoyed the company of some dudes from the Umeå design school, which is apparently one of the top few in Europe, and got invited to some design school party this Friday. So, lots of aesthetically advanced young adults, and me. My first thought was stubbies, wife-beater and thongs, and a case of VB. But it's still getting down to -10 at night, so I'll probably have to wear tracky dacks over the stubbies. Maybe some ugg.

The weather at Åre was perfect, the skiing awesome, absolutely zero queues. Only possible complaint was some of the runs were a bit icy. But you'd have to be a bit of a tool to complain about anything. Here's some photos:

Some of my allies. The Norwegians, Catrine on the left and Pia on the right, and a Finnish guy in the middle who was apparently named after a gay model. Behind you can see the little tic-tac box that took us up to the top.



Me at the top:



Åre main skiing area:



Up the top of the cable car:



Looking west from the top, apparently the mountains on the horizon are actually in Norway:


A mountain hut completely encrusted in snow:



Reindeer are to Sweden what roos are to straya. A traffic hazard.



In conclusion, I heartily recommend this product or service.

Ahem. Presenting the Cheese-A-Phone

Now we can communicate with various cheeses, regardless of their foreign tongue. Go ahead, Ren, say something in Limburger.



I started Swedish lessons this afternoon. Actually, the course is half way through already, started while I was in oz, but they allowed me join on the condition that I passed the mid semester exam, which was last Friday. It was a piece of piss, I blitzed it.

The teacher is a hilarious Stimpyesque Swedish woman who leaps around the class room, pirouetting on one leg and extracting floopy floopy nonsense from her esophagus with the most exaggerated lip contortions I've seen since Jim Carrey famously administered fellatio to a cactus.

To form the Swedish syllable "y", for example, you must shape your lips as though they are using a polygonal prism with an odd number of sides no greater than 7 but no less than 3 as a dummy, whilst filling your entire mouth, nasal passage, and sinuses with your tongue. The sound is then created by inducing vibrations in the gums and cheekbones by means of the stomach muscles. If done right, it sounds like Elmer Fudd doing an impression of Mike Tyson.

Everything's so clear to me now. I'm the King of the Cheese, and you're the Lemon Merchant.

Some updates in point form

• Going skiing this weekend in Åre with the alpine club at uni. Apparently the largest ski resort in northern Europe (i.e. north of the alps).
  
  I said to the girl organizing it "I have a friend from Norway who says Swedes aren't real vikings, only Norwegians, can you prove her wrong?" and she replied "Yes". Should be a good weekend!
  
  (Friend in question is of course the inimitable Guurocknroll.)


• Randomly happened to meet a guy who is a divemaster... in Umeå... (WHY??). Apparently there are two dive shops in Umeå (WHY?????).
  
  The one he chooses to patronize runs trips over to Norway to do night dives in the fjords during winter. I asked isn't that cold? He said, "No, the water temperature is about 6 degrees, even though the air is about -20". I said "You mispronounced the English word 'yes'".
  
  Apparently on these dives you often see giant spider crabs, with each leg as long as a human arm. Here's a pic I found on the web:
  
  
  
  The shop has a pretty killer boat too:
  
  
  
  
  
  Like to see that one do battle, mano a mano, with a reef edge.



• Work? Oh yeah, work. I continue to diversify my options. Mostly pretty easy stuff, but I'm learning a lot of practical tools.
  

Some computer vision stuff. Easy, straightforward, but good to learn this kind of guff.


Finding optimal inputs for experiments in identifying flow resistance parameters in hydrostatic systems (related to the Hydrocephalus stuff).

Might be getting involved with analysis of MRI images, with some guys from Michigan, also in relation to studying flow in the brian/spinal column.

Finding explicit Lyapunov functions for generating orbitally stable oscillations in mechanical systems. My boss says: some results here might be a nice reason for you to go visit spain, and talk to the people there.

• The 60-80cm of snow cover here is starting to melt, which means that every single crap a dog has deposited on the side of the road over the last 5 months is being reintroduced to the world, perfectly preserved, like Ötzi the 5000 year old Iceman. Really, every few metres you see a new pile of frozen fudge. This is a side of northern life I hadn't anticipated.

Latvian cowbell fondu karaoke singalong

Cheese, bad singing, cowbells, Latvians, sounds like any given Saturday night (do do dooo do doooo do do) in the cultural fondu pot that is Sydney.

But it wasn't always like this. There was a time, in Australia's inspidid white-bread past, when, to find such a harmonic combination, one would have to travel, often by sea, and subsequently donkey, to a small japanese record store, dank, candle-lit, hidden from the outside world, nestled in a Riga back-alley that lead from the swiss-cheese district straight to hell.

Spēlēt tas no jauna, Yoshi*, they'd plead, drunk and full of cheese. And the old gramophone would scratch into action once more, and an early recording of the traditional folk song "The Final Countdown", recognisable as the source material for the 80's hit by Swedish troubadours Europe, but differing in that the later version lacked the six seperate cowbell solos totalling 18 minutes of play time, would resonate in its well-worn grooves, and the rowdy Latvians would sing their little Latvian hearts out.

Romantic imagery, I know. Images which have been part of our lives since before we could read or write or play the violin.

Well, my friends, hold on to your hats, because, if all goes to plan, and certain fiduciary matters can be placed in the proper columns on particular spreadsheets, then I, your faithfull modern computer-correspondent, and at least two high-flyers from the heady world electrical engineering, one of whom has genuine Latvian heritage, will, in six to twelve months time, be travelling to Latvia on a mission to find this legendary shop, this mecca of the Latvian cowbell fondu karaoke singalong scene.

My co-explorers will be Mandy and Dean, although if you know who they are you probably already knew about the plans, the plans being sort of Sweden-Finland-St Petersburg-Latvia-Estonia-Finland-Sweden circuit. We will also see such famous tourist attractions as Dr Demihov's Two-Headed Dog, in the Latvian Medical History Musuem.



Looks like a little dog sitting on top of a big dog to me, but that's those crazy Latvians for ya!

Stay tuned for further developments as they, err, develop.

* - "Play it again, Yoshi" in Latvian

Somewhere, always, a child is being beaten

Here is the Swedish version of Up Late with Hotdogs.



Still just as excrutiatingly boring, but at least its a bit easier on the eye.

For people lucky enough to have avoided the television phenomenon that is Up Late with Hotdogs, here's a fairly accurate description of it written by a guy from The Chaser.

Actually, speaking of Aussie tv, but raising the bar a bit, John Safran vs God has just been shown on Swedish tv, and it was pretty popular. Noice!

On Sunday I went downtown and wandered around the river, as I am wont to do of a Sunday afternoon. Here is a triptych of three recent visits:





The river being completely frozen over this time, I went for a wander around.



It felt reeeallly wierd! Sure, I was on a frozen river all day ice fishing, but it wasn't a frozen river I'd actually seen flowing before. I think this was the first time I'd actually walked on frozen river which I was completely used to seeing in its liquid state, and therefore carefully avoiding stepping into. This literal walking-on-water made me understand exactly how Jebus felt (though not for the first time).

When I walked back towards the ladder to climb back onto the regular dirt-based ground, I heard a cracking sound coming from the ice beneath my feet and, oh boy, I was up that ladder quicker than you can say "Here's an alphabetical list of things I enjoy on the television show Up Late with Hotdogs: [list follows]".

Yeah, I know, but you come up with something better!

"When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an adventure is going to happen."

- Winnie the Pooh

On Saturday, one of the locals at work took some of us down to the frozen delta where the Umeå River meets the Gulf of Bothnia to do a spot of ice fishing.

Here we are loaded up on a snowmobile-train to take us down to the river (except me, as I took the photo):




Tis quite a starkly beautiful area, and whoever is the Norse god that controls the weather, he or she was quite cooperative, giving us around -2 degrees (freakin warm), and blue skies with occaisional cloudy periods.





a frozen jetty:



Here Uwe and I drill a hole, Pedro laughs to himself about the plight of the Somalians, or something.



Håkan waits patiently for nothing to happen.



Anders strikes a pose which is difficult to strike without the proper gumboots



Of course, it being winter, all the smart fish had either swum south long ago, or collected enough nuts in the autumn to hibernate through the winter. Whatever the case, we didn't even get a nibble. Not even a sly look. I'm told a good catch is about 15cm long and weighs about 300 grams, so I wasn't actually all that disappointed.

Good thing we brought hamburgers. Bad thing my eggs all broke, leaving the bacon encrusted with eggshells, and also I coudn't find any tinned pineapple in the supermarket (what up wit dat?) , so my grand plan of doing aussie-style Burgers with the Lot didn't come to fruition. I did have beetroot, but beetroot does not an aussie-burger make, a fact which McDonalds have yet to get through their insulated skulls.

Here Håkan prepares the firewood, while Leonid has yet to give up hope for fish.




Good thing about ice is that all fires are self-extinguishing. Just think, dear Grampians readers, how much property could have been saved if the whole area was iced over in preparation for the bushfire season!



After lunch, with our bellies full but our souls disillusioned with the excitement potential of sitting next to a hole doing nothing, we took turns taking the snowmobile for a fang over the frozen river.
One word: 'ken freaken awesome!

The frozen river surface looks perfectly flat, but actually has ever-so-slight undulations, which give you a bouncee-bouncee ride when you're going 80km/h!

Like hitting top-speed aquaplane on the kiosk/digi in calmish waters, but much faster.

Since I was taking pics, there are none of me driving . here's a couple of Pedro and Anders (although Pedro described my driving as the scariest).





Later, Anders' cousin came down in his new snowmobile which can apparently reach 150km/h. He didn't let us drive it.



Battered, windswept and weatherbeaten from the snowmobile shenanigans, we sat back and enjoyed a traditional swedish relaxant: strong black coffee mixed with hembränd, aka moonshine. And when the swedes say hembränd, they mean it!! (Which, if translated, would be like saying moonshine, and meaning that.) It lights a fire in your tummy!

(safety note: Anders, who drove the snowmobile home, abstained. Drunk snowmobiling is one of the most popular forms of death in northern sweden)



As we were kicking back in the ice with our rocket-coffees, there was a tubby little bitch of a kid who was cutting sick on a nearby hill, and taking full advantage of his father's snowmobile driving:








That night, we all went back to Anders' place, and I cooked them my Afghani chiken and spinach adaptation, and the red wine flowed like goon from a sack, and there was much rejoicing and merrymaking.

So that was my day, and it was good one.

If I had to do it all over, I'd do it all over you.

Snowmobile doughies on frozen ponds!
Just one of many exciting ways to kill yourself in Scandinavia!

Speaking of recreational activities of questionable wisdom, I found a cool site about diving with killer whales in Norway. Looks like a ripper. Minor drawback: the trip costs $8,000 US. I could go on a reef trip every year until I'm 37 for that. Gotta find some sort of northern equivalent of the dive club, something which runs dirt cheap trips, without Oakley dive masks, Gucci BCDs and Tommy Hilfrigger rubber chickens.

I've found a sort of outdoor club here in Umeå. Their photos show potential in the rediculous hat department, particularly Kristina, Tobias, Emmy and Per, but the lack of horns is holding them back. Maria seems to have some rediculous sailor shirt on, which I'm all for.

They have a trip coming up in the spring which promises the opportunity to "explore the mythical forests of Skule". I'm hoping they don't mean "mythical" literally, in the sense of not actually existing. On the other hand, if they were the types of forests that come to life and battle evil wizards, that would be a boon.

If I treat you like a number it's because I can't remember your name

Well, I'll revert to English I guess, Swedish may limit my potential demographic impact.

Of course, I'm back in Sweden, and sweet merciful cheeses everyone here is sickly white. Green even!
They all look like brett.

We have a visiting researcher from spain here at the moment, and between the two of us we have a total melanin monopoly in Umeå.

From front door to front door, I was travelling for 39 hours, almost down to the minute. arriving at 11:30pm, I collapsed and slept through to 8am, putting me instantaneously back onto Swedish time.

At least the days are getting longer. About 12 hours per day of sunlight now, in a couple of months it will be 24. Weather has been beautiful, blue skies... kinda chilly though. Every morning it's about -20, by dusk the sun has heated it to about -5.

There was a snow-sculpting competition in town last week. The theme was "circus". Interestingly, none of the entries were based on "The Bob Cock Circus of Pain".
I think next year I'm gonna enter with a giant viking helmet, whatever the theme is.

This was the winner:

This one came in second, entitled "I can fly, I'm not scared!"

A bronzed aussie and a paper-white local:

I didn't even need to pay $30 to sit here!

On Saturday I'm going ice fishing in a nearby lake with some allies from work. We went to buy supplies this arvo, tiny little rods and reels, and lures. Unfortunately, we didn't purchase the hefty piece of kit pictured below, all our drilling will be done by hand.

I vaguely remember telling at least two people about the power plugs they have in car parks over here. You hook them up to a little fan heater under the bonnet so the engine doesn't completely freeze over at night. Here's a piccy:

Got a new kool keith album, Dr Dooom. Keith's love song is... touching.

We stuck together when one of my parakeets died
You broke down and cried, for the love of animals
I used to always cut the legs off a roach
See if he'll stay there on a piece of tissue
and give him a piece of toast
That morning, he would wake up and be gone
What, the insect had a ambulance?
As a little boy eatin ice cream in the cold project apartment
I used to see rats dance, my aunt used to lay down the poison
and say, "Y'all makin too much noise and.."
(Too much noise and.. oh, too much!)

It's Welfare Love, section eight!

tilbaks i sverige

och det är mycket kallt!!!
24 grader minus idag!

ett vacker bild av det bbq på Lördag från Mandy:



medurs runt den Viking: alex, fro, jas, sarah

Goodnight Australia

It's been real, I fly out tonight.

Me sporting a wicked tan, I'll be the envy of Sweden.

Forecast for the night I arrive home: A low of -23 degrees.

Had a nice bbq down a coogee yesterday, rain was threatened but it turned out lovely (I had faith). Everyone enjoyed the plentiful sausages. Various people popped in and out (and off) at various times.

Wandered up past Mardi Gras. Again, everyone enjoyed the plentiful sausages. I realised that, at certain times and particular places, a viking helmet is actually a pretty gay thing to be wearing. Commented on this to a friend. 30 seconds later two big bikey guys wearing nothing but leather lingerie and viking helmets walked by. Eye contact was made.

Wandered up to Guro's house where Woody, Jenny and I taught a master class in schuplattler (german foot-and-knee-slapping dance). G also knew a variation (what are the odds?) and took issue with our rendition. Thus the great schuplattler battles of 2006 began. Ich haber eine kleine lederhosen fehlfunction.

"Well good afternoon pretty lady and how fine you're looking,

I'm sure in another setting and mood we'd all like to know you as a person with your many fine points and so on like that, but from your fashion message I can tell that you are a sensitive type person who'll appreciate the problem we have here in terms of orientational vibes, if you follow..."

The already confused Zoyd, whose survival instincts may not have been working all the way up to spec, decided to produce the chain saw from his bag.

Finally watched (most of) Kill Bill Vol 2 last night at Paul's. Why didn't Thomas Pynchon get writing credits? Or at least character development... The Uma Thurman character is pretty much exactly DL Chastain from Vineland, the 6 ft blonde American ninjette trained by an old oriental master travelling through the American west settling old scores, except she never sings a song that goes

I'm just a floozy with an uzi, just a girlie with a gun,
When I coulda been a model, and I shoulda been a nun.

She even has the same "vibrating palm of death" move, and gives almost exactly the same Clark Kent metaphor as an explanation for reclusive hick life.

Here's something to think about: The atom bomb was never used in anger before women got the vote. Coincidence??

Cleaning out my desk now at unsw. I have spiders living amongst my piles of papers. I'm not kidding.

Update: digging back through geological layers on my desk, here's some of what I've found so far:

• 7 pounds of diving weights
• four hard disks.
• A $300 watch
  
• numerous cds I bought ages ago and haven't listened to, and forgot I even owned.
• The green miniature clothes peg that I had in my hair at papa's wedding. I think it came from Murray's girl.
• The x-rays from when I sprained my ankle playing netball two and a half years ago.
  
• A coaster from the Royal at Randwick with the following message scrawled on the back: "Westbourne Grove Bayswater, Tube: bayswater (circle) notting hill gate (central)(red) Latvian cowbell fondu karaoke singalong".... I'm sure it meant something at the time...