All killer, no filler

As some of you are already aware, I was hospitalised for a grand total of eight or so hours a couple of days ago, and since I'm apparently fine, and also have nothing interesting to write before going to Älmhult (oh yeah, baby!) and Copenhagen this weekend, this is what happens:

Timeline: The Hospital Adventure, 2K6

15:12 First examination, at local clinic, by med-student-Linn. EKG taken. Watch me work my way up the ladder!

15:41 Enter, stage left: Dr Lena Trell.

15:49 Blood test.

16:10 Results are in! Back to Dr Trell.

16:45 Callback from cardiologist at University Hospital, filling out transfer forms, calling taxi to take me there.

17:35 Arrival University Hospital ER. Am told to wait. Possibly forever.

ER-observation #1: Playing "Knocking on Heaven's Door" over the PA at a place of medical care? Seriously?

ER-observation #2: The ER has a queue system. Take a number, we'll get to your gushing legwound in due time. (Although in all fairness, a note proclaims proudly that people with brething or circulatory/fainting issues should contact the staff immediately.)

ER-observation #3: TV at hospitals sucks. Maybe because it's on SVT1, which is now showing kiddie-TV.

ER-observation #4: The mechanical arm that picks up food/drinks in the vending machine has a sticker on it, saying something which roughly translates into "Adding a sparkle to your day". Yeah, right.

ER-observation #5: My wristwatch stopped working 20 minutes ago, at 17:45. This is not completely without suckage.

ER-observation #7: Yes! News on TV!

ER-observation #7½: No! Kids manage to grab hold of the remote...

19:13 Second EKG of the day, new blood test. Wait for results. "It's a busy day", or so they tell me.

23:34 Meet Dr Tilman Weissmann, who wakes me up by telling me his name, repeatedly. In my recently awoken state, I am not quite able to parse this information at the time, thinking I've been transfered to Mars. Or possibly Germany.

00:00 Despite the above misunderstanding, I am pronounced healthy as a butterball (with some form of virus), or whatever, and am promptly sent home.

And that, as they say is that, except for a small midnight adventure to find an ATM to pay for the cab home. The Swedish Welfare System pays for everything. Except a 50 SEK basic charge. Where's the (free) reverse ambulance of the future, taking healthy patients home? Guess I shouldn't complain, the ride was fast, and would have cost me more than three times as much had I had to pay all of it myself. Eat that, Swedish Taxpayer! Hah!

I could be in jail right now

But of course I'm not. That would just be silly. What would I be doing there?

I was in Stockholm this weekend. In this, I was not alone. I was, for want of a more fitting description, giving a tour of the Royal Capital. In this, the houses of parliament have to be included, it kinda goes without saying. Yes, despite me spending the better part of that sentence saying just that. So we go there, check out the place, and on the way out, just the two of us, I open the door out on to the street, and am about three meters (or slightly less than ten feet, for my metrically challanged friends) away from slamming said door in the face of none other than Mr Göran Persson and Mr Pär Nuder. Prime Minister and Finance Minister of the Kingdom of Sweden.

Had I been in America, I would never have gotten so close. At least I imagine the Secret Service keeps things squared away to the extent that they don't let random tourists open the door and potentially cause G.W. to have a nose-bleed on camera. Ok, so Göran (as I know call him) isn't the head of state like G.W., but his nickname is "He who's in charge", so that pretty much settles that, as far as I'm concerned. But anyway, Sweden is... different. Had I been armed with nothing more than a cake, and ample resentment for the establishment, I could have been the one responsible for the past Finance Minister, Mr Bo "Bosse" Ringholm looking like, well, this (back in 2001, image credit Aftonbladet.se):


But then again, like I said up top, I'm not in jail, nor have I baked any cakes lately (other than a really delicious cheesecake a couple of weeks ago, you can have the recepie if you want). So I was out of ammo. But it was still an exercise in fine timing, timing our exit with that of his Göran-ness. It's just a shame I didn't vote for the guy, but you can't have it all, as they say.

Getting squarely back on track, there was also actual sights to be seen. Such as this, which is possibly the finest looking 7-11 in all the land. Of course, being positioned right next to the "Royal Dramatic Theatre" (note English spelling) probably boosts the class of the place, anyway. We never went in, but I can't imagine they sell anything other than the finest beluga caviar and Dom Perignon '58. Which is probably the worst year of them all, what do I know?


We covered a lot of ground during our time in the Royal Capital, but I'll try to leave out all the random walking/shopping/tower-climbing/museum-going (see, I'm being cultured!). Instead, I shall leave you with a picture of these guys:


...who are basically all that stand between me claiming the following as my own. Damn it!


If anybody knows when the current tentant's lease is up, let me know. I wouldn't mind living there myself. Sure, it's not a very central location, but the surroundings are fabulous, and it's only a bus-and-train-ride away from downtown Stockholm. Although apparently, living there does mean you have to pay the toll if you choose to drive downtown from home, at least according to this. A small price to pay, surely, but a nuisance none the less.

Curses! I only now realise I should have titled this "Let them eat cake" instead. If only there was some sort of tool to change things you've already written...

Consequences be damned

Generally speaking, I'm not the type to "dare", even less "win". I certainly don't scream "Consequences be damned!" at the top of my lungs near often enough. This is of course because in my own personal universe, doing something like that seems a little... foolish. It would seem that it is, more often than not, not the consequences who end up being damned, but I myself. And that's not really what you're attempting with all the screaming.

Yeah, so I went to the hair-dresser-stylist-whatever-the-kidz-call-it-nowadays. The result? A significant portion of my hair being removed, as well as a significant portion of the cash I had on hand. But that's not all, oh no. Other, stranger side-effects reared their ugly head. Since I usually don't ask consequences to damn themselves, I figured I'd go ahead and do it today. Just for the hell of it. An outright lie, to be sure, but what happened is that I ended up with a new hairstyle. Which is pretty big coming from a guy who switched once in the third grade, once in highschool, and then once in university. I walked in, a hairstyle was suggested to me, and I took the bait. I was powerless to resist. Worn down by the ratrace, or whatever folks get worn down by these days.

"You look like the singer in a band. A rock band. Only one that doesn't actually sell any albums" This is the reaction from the first person I met after what shall henceforth be known as "the incident". And with a bit of imagination, I can see the way to make that appear to be a compliment. Or not. Naturally, publishing a picture might seem to be in order. I, however, harbor no wish to be known as the one who destroyed the internet.

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This past weekend, some people thought it might be nice to give egg-sales a shot in the arm. They came up with the quite frankly puzzling concept of Easter, which seems to be a holiday dedicated to eating lots and lots of eggs while looking at cute, overly fluffed-up chickens, without letting your subconsious connect the dots.

As a rule, I'm all in favour of holidays. The more, the merrier, I say. But I like the regular kind the best, for example The Weekend. Or, perennial crowd favorite, Spring Break, which is so much better than the weekend, because the time off can be spent pointing and laughing at people who actually have to work. Easter does not fit either category. It's worse, it's the True Holiday. During which you're expected to do stuff, carry on traditions so that your offspring will also get some sort of heart attack from running around trying to get that final gift for their cousins' kids at some point in the future. And watch TV. And be "in the holiday spirit", whatever that is defined to be. This, I'm actually ok with. However, I just cannot stand the fact that at least in this country, things grind to a standstill. Why does everybody has to be allowed time off at the same time? Society ceases to function just because a jolly guy in a red suit who struggled with a BMI-problem had to go around delivering murrh to random people in stables 2000+ years ago. Or something.

Well, yeah, my main problem is that not one of the three pizza-places we tried to get takeout from on Sunday night were open. On the same day, I had managed to get my bank to call me and discuss, uhm, things. Who the hell needs to do banking on what is actually known as a "bank holiday"?! It's right there in the name! For crying out loud... I say, move all the bank-people over to the pizza industry on holidays, and everybody would be just that little bit happier.

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Three points to anybody who can guess where I took the picture. All-comers welcome.

Here comes nothin'

I went running today. It's a good a reason as any to start this thing, I guess. And I should know. Twice already, I've started things like this, the one involving a bathtub control panel and hot-sauce, the other Chubu Track and Mitsuya Cider. A fine combination on pretty much any day of the week. So yeah, that's the rationale behind starting this thing. With running.

You understand, I'm not generally the person to actually do that. Run. If the touch of highschool biology left me with anything, it's that man has been a long time in the makin'. Yes, there is a tired joke about women being longer/not as long in the making, but I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Anyway. Man has been long in the making, and this period of general creation has left us an ample amount of spare moments here and there to invent things. Things like a bike, which can get you places faster than running can. Neanderthals didn't have the bikes. Cro magnon-man? You betcha. And we all know how that turned out. So why would you actually spend precious (a gross over-estimation in my own case) free time running?

And why in some deity's name would you spend even more time writing about it here?

No, you didn't ask, but since I am physically unable to take a hint, I shall give you my view of this whole blog thing. It's a save station. In the highly likely event of my demise, all the researchers of the land will obviously want to make a new me. It goes without saying. Now, sure, DNA tech is all well and good, but it won't really recreate me, you know? I'll be a lot like me for the first couple of days, but from then, it'll be all downhill. Of this, there can be little doubt. I'll turn into some kind of street hooligan. Not that that doesn't sound appealing, it's just not me. So, said boffins will need to fill my head with something, right? Granted, Encyclopedia Britannica would be a good candidate, but that might leave me with little room for social skills. And these are very much in demand in today's marketplace. Probably even moreso in tomorrow's marketplace, which is where new-me will be doing his job-hunting. Which leads to the conclusion that they'll need to have stuff, written by me, about, well, me, to fill the new me with.

A very long way of justifying something which is, at it's core, extremely self-serving. Some would argue it's a victimless crime, I'm not hurting anybody publishing this. Think again! 1) You just read it. Just imagine what you could have done with that amount of time! You could have cross-bred some new kind of melon into existance. Been the first to circle your block on a tricycle going backwards. Hell, you might even have been able to learn how to play that instrument. When lying on your deathbed, will you truly be able to say "I have no regrets"? Don't think so. 2) Just think of the thousands of bytes I'm wasting, bytes which very well could have been used to cure cancer. Or something. Thousands, I tell you!

This is not a positive direction for this thing to take. I feel. Therefore, I offer the following, shall we say, tidbit:

My girlfriend just got back from class, which she attends with none other than Mr Mikko Luoma. You may know him as the guy with jersey #5 from such hockey teams as the Edmonton Oilers, or Tappara. If you're Finnish. Otherwise, you might know him from Linköping HC, where he's currently something of a regular. Teams are built around this man. He is the essence which binds the glue that holds the fort down. Or whatever. Sure, there's the remote, and I can't stress this enough, remote chance you don't know him at all, but I won't get into that.

See, that got us right back on track. In order to make sure that doesn't last too long, I'll present you with the following, meaning roughly "to ignore completely". I made it a couple of days ago, and it just seems to fit here, somehow.