It Came From Above

I made a new friend the other day. Not sure her name, but I like her style.

Read thoroughly kids, there might be a pop quiz...

Before I crash for the evening, here's some interesting facts about Stockholm and Sweden.

Tuesday Top Ten - Best/Worst Swedish Eats

Having the metabolism of a horse, I consider myself well qualified to decide what's good, and what's not. Many would argue that taste is subjective. They are wrong.





Worst


5. Anything by Abba.
That's right, before there was ABBA there was Abba, Swedish based fish and seafood, in a can. I've actually got nothing against the food, but I'm going to assume that the singing Swedes' canned, salty sound was directly inspired by this century old company, which is more than enough reason to call for an international boycott.

4. Blood Pudding.
Why is it called "blood pudding"? So glad you asked. "a sausage made by cooking down the blood of an animal with meat, fat or filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled" Wow. Sounds delightful. Don't think it sounds so bad? Well then, by all means, have a gander. Isn't that supposed to be the end result of a meal? Makes "haggus" look like a fucking sirloin.

3. Plopp.
Speaking of end results, this is just unecessary. Sure, it's brown, long, and soft in the middle, but seriously, is that really the best name for these things? I'm a big fan of chocolate, especially Swedish chocolate, but I'm not about to eat something that reminds me of this. Now in Caffe Latte, for extra brown goodness.

2. Surströmming.
This canned delicasy has a "particular smell, which is similar to fish gone bad or garbage left out in the sun for a couple of days." (Wikipedia) 3 day old garbage? Beats the hell out of having to eat real food. They actually ferment this shit in the summer heat for over a month. Then they can it. Then, miraculously, people fucking buy it! It's recommended to be opened outdoors, or under water. This isn't looking so bad anymore.

1. Fil.
This stuff bugs me so much, this is the second time I've brought it up since this blog's inception. It's revolting. Scandinavians use fil mainly for cereal, but it's also mixed with jam, banana slices, whatever the hell else you wanna throw in there to take away from the taste. Fil is not available outside of Scandinavia, but I have a recipe for anyone willing to try it: Poor a glass of milk. Leave it in the sun, or on a furnace, for about a week. Stir. Let sit for another week. Stir and serve. There you go. Fil. Enjoy.





Best




5. French hot dog.

I'm going to assume that Sweden's version of street meat isn't actually french. It is, however, quite tasty. The French hot dog hardly wins points for appearance but if you've managed to read this far without wandering off to your favourite gay porn site (come on, we all have one) then kudos to you. The bun is closed off at one end, filled part-way with the condiments of your choice, then stuffed in true erotic fashion. It's the perfect fixer on a drunken night out. Not that I would know.

4. Pytt i Panna. Translation: "bits of food in a pan." Consisting of tiny cubes of potato, onion and ham, this is the hangover food of kings. Accompanied by an egg and a slice of toast, no other breakfast can satisfy the starved and angered stomach after a lost battle with alcohol. Not that I would know.

3. Plopp.

Ya. Whatever. Get over it.

2. Cake.
Yes, just cake. Working at a Toronto go-kart track that handled many a birthday bash, I oversaw my fair share of birthday bashes. Every cake was the same, flavourless sweet icing on the top, fluffy chocolate powder in the middle. The Swedes make cake the way I make sex. First, a thin, delicate layer of pound cake (soft bodily kisses). Next, a layer of jam (breastward kisses) mixed with crushed fresh fruit (wandering hands). Another thin layer of pound cake (back to the kisses. Make her want it.) A different fruit mix, sometimes blended with a hint of icing suger (placing her on the boss's desk). More pound cake (stick it in there). A thin, fantastic layer of marzipan on the top (All over her bosum).


1...
Sorry, I'm still cleaning up from number 2.

500 Kronor Saved

Yesterday I found out about the Swea Reggae Festival. Luckily for me, I found this out two days before the event, just enough time to buy the tickets and plan for a trip into Stockholm. Looking at the line up, I was impressed. I'll admit that I have nary a Jimmy Cliff song in my arsenal, but I am fairly aware of his influence in the genre. Although he's the headliner, I was far more excited to see

Sadly, I perused the schedule and noticed that Eek-a-Mouse and Looptroop are performing at the same time. Seriously, someone did that to piss me off. I'm sure of it. Anyways, because of this, My and I have conceded that the 500 kronor ($78 CAD) is probably better off remaining in our pockets, or being spent on other things. Which sucks, because reggae is probably the only music the two of us can agree on (except for this song).

Thank God It's Monday

I'm gonna tell you what I really think I like about Mondays
'Cause they feel like Saturdays
When you don't gotta go to work
Every day is a holiday
I wake up when I want to
I do anything I wanna do
Can't wait for Tuesday.

- NOFX

Tetris and Taco Bell

My most prominent job contact is currently on holiday, our apartment isn't available to us until September, and the owners of our temporary residence in Stockholm are out of town. So I'm currently situated in a beatiful place out in the country, with little or nothing to do. As I have nothing exciting to report, I figure this would be a good time to ramble on about one of the petty little differences between this country and my home country. The Tetra Pak. Apparently it's a Swedish invention. I'm hardly surprised, considering everything here comes in one of these cardboard boxes. Milk, sour cream, yoghurt (which is a common milk replacement for cereal. Yum.), wine, rosehip soup, fil (probably the closest thing to rotten milk I've ever tasted), even ground beef. That's right, ground beef.

Ok, so you're probably thinking I made that last one up, and you're right. I had to do it, for effect, you see. But if you've ever peered past the counter at Taco Bell and watched them squeeze your taco meat out of a clear plastic bag, you'll admit that meat in a box is not far fetched. In fact, I'm going to push for this to happen. I'm also going to push to have them renamed to Tetris Paks. Wouldn't that be awesome to be able to play a massive, edible game of Tetris in your fridge? You could even have your friends over on weekends and they could bring their fridge and, well, you know where this is going.

I need a job.

Fire in the Sky

Last night I was out getting some fresh air, hanging with My's step sister Nathalie, when we saw these crazy colourful explosions in the sky. They looked like orange flashes of lightning. Apparently there's a military base several miles away, so it seems they were doing some sort of crazy training excercises at 2 in the morning. They didn't seem to make a sound either, which was interesting. Anyways, we didn't have a camera with us, so no photos were taken. Instead, I've posted a photo of Lee Perry in Dublin.

40 Some odd hours later...

Well, I made it. I wish I had had some sort of crazy adventure to report, but sadly there were no engine failures, no emergency landings. The whole thing was rather boring. As always, I managed not to sleep at all throughout the entire thing. I'm sure I invented some new yoga positions in my various attempts at comfort. Midgets* often forget how truly lucky they are. Jerks. Thankfully, three cinematic masterpieces were shown during the first flight. Lucky me.

As much as I should be hunting for employment right now, I really want to be frollicking around in the woods, prancing about without a worry. Or any clothing. I've always assumed that this is what Swedes do, and I refuse to allow anyone to tell me otherwise. I have many other assumptions about Swedes, more specifically the female variety, and I've made damn sure that My fits them all accordingly. I'm off for some breakfast.


- Daily goal: Avoid using/learning any Swedish words. My language is more important.

*I know they prefer to be called "little people" but frankly I prefer to be called captain Zanthorpe, and it has yet to happen, so fuck them.