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Yes, it’s the number of my final post in Moved To Sweden. I hope you have enjoyed most of my blogging. I may continue blogging later on, but now I feel like my battery is dead. And I should have changed the title of ’Moved to Sweden’ as well, since now I’m living in Finland again. If it happens that I should re-start my blog enthrallment, I will let you know by visiting and informing my blog-mates, and also by writing the link here:

________http://smekthis.blogspot.com/_______________________

(had to change the service provider because I couldn't create a new blog here from Finland!)

Thanks and have a good new year 2009 (what’s left of it )!!! And happy birthday, Elvis!

Christmas Eve was a nice quiet day. There was no snow but a little frost on the ground. Temperature was below zero, helping the frost not to melt away. Santa had visited our place while I was playing with our kid in the park, giving us many nice presents. We went to a church and came back to spend a peaceful evening.

Christmas Day was full of packing and washing up. For some reason, there was not that much rush in the laundry room that day. We were lucky that it was even in function.

We had a date with my land-lady on Boxing Day. I gave her one of the keys so she could come back later whenever she wanted to. We had a huge amount of luckage to put in the car. It looked like there was no way to make it. Actually, we decided to leave something in the apartment. I told land-lady about it, and she said we could leave anything we like. And even come back later to collect them, if we wanted to. It was a crazy idea to travel a long distance in such a full-packed car, but it was also the only idea we had. My wife does good packing, which helped a lot.

It took us 8,5 hours to drive to the first pit stop. It was the most difficult trip. I had printed out the map to home of my wife's friend's (no GPS!), but when we travelled and my wife called the friend, she said: "No, we are in the house of my husband's parents. Call us when you get to Hoting. By the way, there's no network coverage there!" No signal in Sweden? Yup, it was so North and between fjelds that it was possible to get an almost totally brain-cancer-free environment to live! Just like in Northern Finland, I've been told.

It was more or less miracle to find the place finally. Driving slippery roads in the dark, in a foreign country, isn't easy (but it sure is hard enough, LOL! I can't stop referring to that silly ABBA song, it seems). There was a lot of snow to enjoy!

The next morning I was driving a snowmobile with the husband. It was fun, doing 100 km/h on a partly frozen river. He knew the safe places by heart, but it was pretty dangerous to drive that fast, without seat belts and helmets. We had to drive fast because there were places where there was water between the ice layers, and they might not carry the weight of a snowmobile doing 50 km/h. Pure physics, man!

We got ready for the second trip, to Haparanda, where my aunt lives. It took the same 8,5 hours to make it. The mileage was quite the same: about 650 km's. This time it was easier to follow signs, although it felt like those ups and downs of fjelds would never end. The local cars used to have extremely well-equipped light-systems: when they had long-distance lights on, they blinded me pretty much totally. Some of them refused to turn them off when they were coming closer. I felt like being X-rayed!

We were surprised by a group of deers near Kalix. Luckily all of them were standing on the opposite lane; otherwise we would have bumped into them! I saw them too late to react. It could have ended disasterously.

It was not until late in the evening when we parked the car in Haparanda. My aunt hadn't seen our daughter yet, but she welcomed and got to know her pretty fast. The bed we slept in was a dream come true. In the morning I took a small walk with my wife to Tornio (Torneå) river. It serves as a borderline between Finland and Sweden.

The final trip homeward started around 3 p.m. - just like previous ones. According to the Googlemaps it was almost 700 km's to Nokia. It took around 9 hours to finish it. Like in all parts of the whole trip, we had only one stop. It was for buying more gas and having a small snack and coffee.

It was an exhausting trip all in all. But worth experiencing - once. In the end my foot was hurting so much that it was hard to step on the gas pedal anymore. We got to our homeyard at 1 a.m., local time. No need to emphasize that we were beat, and slept well. And I was back in Finland.

I'm still gathering fragments of things happened in Sweden. Now it's about the 21st of December.

It was Sunday and I was travelling to Gröna Lund with my family. We had been there last December, so we knew what to expect. Repetition is usually not as much fun, but to our daughter it was pure joy once again. She sat on Santa's lap and everything. And got a squeezable soft bear.

On our way back home I found opportunity knocking: Those trolleys were in traffic again and I realized I got another chance to ride it. I had failed miserably before and this time, with my family, I didn't want to pass it.

It was quite an experience. I had ridden a trolley in Helsinki but not in Stockholm. This seemed to be something like 60 years old wagon. It was in good condition however. There was a conductor in the back, and he accepted also cash which is not the case with other communal transportation. SL cards were another way to pay the fare. The conductor was dressed in an old-fashioned uniform and he was acting plus speaking in a funny way. He rang the bell quite often.

The 'slut station' was in the centrum, near Kungsträdgården and NK building. There we watched the beautifully constructed NK windows, very much like Stockmann's in Tampere and Helsinki. There was a lot of Christmas-related stuff for sale everywhere of course. All we lacked was snow.

It's finally time to catch up where I left it. I've been so tired of everything that I haven't had the time to blog lately. Sorry.

Let's go back in time, all the way to the 20th of December. I had booked a Christmas buffet (julbord) in a restaurant nearby as early as two months in advance. It was an expensive place but I wanted to go there and celebrate Christmas spirit there with my family and the Swedes.

I'm sorry to admit that I have forgotten the name of the place, but it was some 'backen' (hill) anyway and located right after the gates of Gamla Filmstaden. Everything about it was great. The service, the food, the drinks... We even got a table near the fireplace. Especially the multiple fish selection was great. And the ham was one of the best ham I ever tasted. Redwine was just right with the food. It was such a shame that our daughter didn't like much anything. She ate only potatoes and ham. Dessert was also fabulous, with home-made candies.

There were a lot of beer bottles in every table. Actually, we were the only ones not to drink beer. Maybe it's part of Swedish tradition to drink beer with Christmas buffet. The atmosphere was cheerful, some Swedes were indeed drinking schnapps and singing Christmas songs. And the service was in function all the time.

We ate from 2 to 4 p.m. after which we rolled back to my apartment. It was too much to eat, granted, which led to the fact that we didn't eat anything before the next morning... It was a worthwhile experience to us all, leaving a good aftertaste and pleasant memories.

I was thinking of user interfaces of today, when I suddenly invented a new TIC model. You see, the UI’s are sometimes difficult to understand, which tells about bad design. For example the common popup window query is something like this:

The file has not been saved. Do you want to save before leaving?

-Yes
-No
-Cancel

Then we can find one step more difficult UI in Gimp:

Save the changes before leaving?

-Save
-Don’t save
-Cancel

There’s no ’yes/no’ option there at all. I thought about it for a while, and here’s my own suggestion:

File hasn’t been saved yet? Don’t you want it to be saved?

-No, I don’t want to save
-No, I do want to save
-Cancel

And, believe me, I have met something like this. Well, not quite but close.

There's so much to remember to miss, so I may have forgotten  to remember something. But here's the list I came up with now:

Jaime and the rest of the gang at the office (minus one), my team at the customer's, Giv'mo' - the singer and the street musician, my apartment, Kista, Råsunda, Hallonbergen, Stockholm in general.

Vasalundshallen, LOL, pretty women in black, all those second-hand record-shops, blogging about Sweden, spending time with my family in Stockholm.

Buns, cakes and cookies, knäckebröd, communal transportation, pancakes, Gallerias, the Zombies concert in Stockholm next Spring, LOL!

Speaking Swedish with the Swedish, because doing it in Finland is not the real thing. Free newspapers.

Plus many other things. I skip the list of things I won't miss in Sweden, because I want to keep up the good spirit.

Sweden is a peculiar country in a sense that they sell snuff (snus/nuuska) although it's forbidden everywhere else inside EU. It's tobacco alright. You put it in your mouth and take it away after a while. That's about it.

I heard from an unreliable source that snuff is not forbidden because no-one has proved it to cause cancer. Well, that was from a mouth of a snuff user. I have read several articles about how dangerous it is. Some claim that it's even more cancer-causing than cigarettes.

It may be due to the new regulations, which don't allow people to smoke in restaurants, that snuff users rule here. You don't have to go out and freeze, when you have snuff in your mouth. And that's pretty ok to me. No smoke - no feeling sick. I bless the snuff in that sense. It doesn't bother me at all, but if you say it's harmless, you're only fooling yourself.

It's funny that you can use snuff in Finland but you can't sell it there. And, as they have the same regulations in restaurants, the need for snuff is almost overwhelming these days. And I know many men who really use snuff, almost on daily basis.

Buying snuff in Finland-boats has been made difficult: you can buy it only when the boat arrives Stockholm, early in the morning. The Finnish passangers that are on a cruise, are usually sound asleep. Therefore, many of them might miss their chance to buy it. There are also limits how much you are allowed to buy snuff at a time. I guess it was something like four packages, each containing ten boxes of snuff.

Snuff is to me like a perfect compromise: it doesn't bother those who don't use it and it lets users enjoy it and die of it. A happy end to all, kind of. Seriously, Sweden should ban snuff as well. Or it should be accepted in all EU countries. Either way. There are so many exceptions that such a many number of countries have had to sacrifice after joining EU, but Sweden is keeping its currency and snuff. Just forbid the use of it - who has said joining EU should be fun?

In Finland, and especially in the army, we have this tradition of ’aamukampa’ (I call it ’morning comb’, which is a direct translation). You buy a comb and start removing pins of comb, one per day. Finally when you have no mornings left, the comb is totally pinless.

Herewith is a snap shot of my morning comb, suggesting for one morning left at work. This calendar type of tradition seems wholly unknown here. Well, it’s about time to bring it here too. Then again, maybe not...

To link this to my past, I didn’t buy a new comb. Instead I broke my old comb I purchased while I was in the army. I didn’t break it then, I had a lot of different kinds of other calendars to keep track of time during those weary days. And then I needed the comb, which is not that much the case these days. 

A small correction: I just heard that they really have this comb tradition in the Swedish army. They have also a long tape which has X amount of days (more than we have in Finland). They cut the tape daily, according to number of days left.

Once in a while, you need a virtual kick in your ass. Instead of  alleged multiple pushes of your chair. Thanks to Mogli for straightening me out. And for the phrase 'Back to Baywatchsics, man!'

Yesterday it was the last entry in Vasalundshallen for me. Sniff! I also visited my favorite second-hand record shop in Solna probably for the last time, and left it empty-handed. Two sniffs! It was a lonely, dark and rainy evening, so the weather was in balance with my feelings. Three sniffs!

It's a shame I can't take Vasalundshallen with me to Finland, LOL! The gym started to be like another home to me. And those familiar faces I got to recognize during the year... Well, they were only faces to me, but still.

The somewhat legendary sauna room was exceptionally friendly this time. There were some guys with me,  most of them lying down with swimming shorts on. One of them took the shovel and looked at me, saying: "Ursäkta (Excuse me), no problem..?". I said 'no problem' and he started throwing water on the hot stones. Six throws, a new record. There are two big stoves in the sauna, but the problem is that there is only a dozen stones in each of them. Them stones should be responsible for the heat, not the electric resistors! You will break the stoves this way, and they won't offer you real heat. Maybe that's the point..?

I would have stayed a little longer in the heat room, but I was curious to know the temperature and I didn't want to wait till the temperature had drastically lowered down. The meter located near the exit, so I took a look at it. +76 C, what the hell? It has always been exactly 80 degrees before, and I had begun to wonder whether the meter was broken or there was a thermostat somewhere, letting in cool air if someone threw water on the stove. This time it was the hottest visit in the sauna for me, as far as Vasalundshallen is concerned, and the meter showed a measly 76 degrees! It seems to be as accurate as my weighing scale that I bought in IKEA last year.

As I left the dressing room, I met the paper-reading man, reading a paper of course. I recognized him even with his clothes on, LOL!

I spent the last one of my free tickets I had received because of a mistake they had made in Vasalundshallen (Browse my blog until beginning of November, if you want to know more about it), so I was kind of living on a borrowed time there the whole of December. I guess I was lucky in that sense - good things do happen to me too!

The subway station in Kista, Stockholm, is quite nice a place. It's so close to Kista Galleria and everything. It does not locate underground; in fact it's very much above the ground. There are two things I want to mention here.

There's something wrong with the card readers at the station ports. It's usually 4 times out of 10 when a reader accepts my SL season card. By comparison, my card is accepted by other stations about 9 out of 10 times. I can see that other people have also problems with the card readers in Kista - it's not just me.

It's at its most irritating when the train arrives and you should be quick through the ports. Trains don't wait. It's not their job to wait. Then it's a panic at the station, a lot of people trying to get through but almost every reader beebs for an embargo: access denied.

Another thing. I've been wondering for a long time, why's there no shops or kiosks at the station. It would be a success undoubtedly. And now, in the very last weeks of me being here, they have built two shops inside the waiting rooms - one for each entry. I can see a lot of people stopping by and buying something. Of course the Galleria is near, but since you have managed to get through the ports, you wouldn't wanna take a risk and go back to Galleria, if you needed a snack or something.

It's good to see these kind of things pop out of nowhere. Give people what they want, that's my kind of attitude...

The place where I sit gives me pain. There’s more than one meter free space behind my chair, and still some co-workers push the back of my chair every time they pass me. It’s not that cramped goddammit!

I really really want to believe that it’s accidental, every time it happens. Not all of them do it still. It annoys me and doesn’t actually help my concentrating on work at hand. Anyway, I think the chair-pushers don’t mean any harm to me. They are such nice guys otherwise.

I must be over-reacting. Probably because I had a real chair-kicking incident in Finland a couple of years ago. My superior came to me from behind (not a Freudian slip), kicked my chair pretty hard and started shouting at me. In front of my own ’subs’. I took it very, very badly. And, judging by the annoyance of these lately chair-pushings, I still haven’t got over it.

Small things may amount to something big. Personally I wouldn’t want to push somebody’s chair deliberately. That’s almost physical violence to me. I'd apologize at least.

Finland won its first gold medal in floorball WM championships. It's not my cup of tea, but winning Sweden in final is always worth mentioning. Because they are tough. Also this time. The result was 7-6 to the Finns, and it was concluded during overtime. Can't get tougher than that.

What made me write about it was a comment in a Swedish free newspaper. One Swedish player, probably the captain of the team, said in disappointed voice that maybe it was Finland's turn to win this time. Finland's turn? Sweden has won ALL the 6 championships that there is! Yup, that kind of comments feed my anger. But then again, arrogant behavior must be inborn in some of us - can't really blame anyone for that, can we? Six for me, one for you, six for me, one for you, ...

There's something wrong in the way I walk. My shoes wear out at the same place, right under the heel of my foot. I have to change insoles once a year, because the nails in shoes start hurting. Insoles wear out soon, mostly because they are loose and therefore my feet can move them. This may sound crazy, and it's hard to describe it, but that's exactly how it happens.

Yesterday I bought a new set of insoles in Kista Galleria. Yup, in the very same place that smells of turpentine. Not this time fortunately. 99 kronor a pair, sounded reasonable enough. Then I tried to be clever. I glued them into my shoes. The downside of glueing is that you can't take insoles out anymore and put into another pair of shoes. I didn't care about that.

My shoe size is between 42 and 43, so I chose 42. I didn't want to start cutting insoles in case they wouldn't fit in. I had some kind of super glue, and I didn't hesitate to use it a lot.

This morning I put my shoes on. The new insoles felt warm and good. When I got to the work, I noticed that they were detached again. How can it be possible? The glueing had failed miserably. My strength of walking or stepping incorrectly outwon the mighty power of super glue, LOL! I should try stapling insoles into my shoes, but that doesn't feel like a smart idea either. Maybe I will try with contact glue later on.

I know I should go to a foot therapist, but it'd cost money. I also know that feet are one of the most important parts of your body, affecting your well-being. I'm saving in the wrong places again. This could explain the pain in my feet up to a point. Even if I had the money, would I spend it on going to a doctor? No. Being cheap really doesn't pay off in the long run. Signed by Smek.

Yes, it’s here. My post on dicks again. This one was one of THE subjects in Finnish tabloids last week. It took this long for me to find a pleasing angle to it.

Condom Consultancy, apparently a German research institute, has collected the hard-on sizes of penises around Europe. Men have measured it themselves and sent the result to the institute. The French - the official lover nation - had the biggest, and the Finns were one of the smallest. The Swedes had one of the longest, according to the survey. Margins were quite small, but the racket about it was quite big.

Hello? There is no one proper way to measure it, and even if there were, would everyone agree to use it? Also the tape measure should be calibrated; I have seen visible differences in cheap measures. Yes, the ’test engineer’ in me raises its ugly head, LOL! The conditions should be the same for all. And the person who does the measuring should be the same, to make sure that there would be no cheating.

One commentator explained why the Finns were down in the list. It was because they were the only ones to tell the truth. While the others exaggerated. Hadn’t I heard that all Finns lie, I would have believed that theory. However, some may have rounded up and some rounded off - depending on self-esteem and the local customs maybe. It’s hard to imagine anyone measure it with 0,1 mm precision, as the results were given in the tabloid.

We’re getting closer to my angle. Why is it so bad to be 22th out of 25 European countries? I mean, someone’s got to be there too, so why not Finns? Is is that shameful? The Finns with big dicks should be happier than their colleagues in other countries, because they have beaten the odds, LOL!

If it’s so shameful to be a small-willy land (providing that the study was accurate and reliable, which it can’t be), then the size really matters. I’ve never doubted it for a second though. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t get statistics of this kind published.

The article in itself was written in a gentile way, which is a big plus. The reactions in comments were not that discreet. Yeah, big balls - small brains et cetera. Why don’t we all get measured when we turn 20 (for example in the army, by a certified luscious blonde that would guarantee a maximum hard-on, LOL! And a gorgeous hunk for those who’d prefer that.) and set the facts right? There's no point in measuring if only those exhibitionists that had sent their results to the condom company are taken into account. We could get rid of this endless speculation for once and for all! It shouldn’t be that hard (pun intended)...

My blog has leaked to some of my co-workers at the customer's. It's a small miracle that it has taken that long, because I haven't actually kept it hidden. I have been thinking so far that no-one really cares about what I do or don't. By now, they know about the blog, not the address of it. I will reveal them the URL this Friday.

There's scarcely any information that might hurt anyone at the customer's. My hands are tight so to speak, and I wouldn't want to tease nice fellows in our team. My problems come more or less from the company I'm working for, not the customer. Although I must say that the language politics is still something that keeps me wondering - inside and outside the job.

I just counted: this is my 541st post in this blog. That's a lot of reading for a new-comer. About for 1,5 years worth. I didn't start blogging immediately when I moved to Sweden, which is something I regret. I'd like to have had the whole stay documented. Of course I have written about some of those early incidents retroactively - both in my blog and book (the book download and purchase option from Lulu is now cancelled by me). This one being my first blog ever it didn't occur to me right away to start doing it.

Right now, I have four full working days ahead of me in Sweden. The rest of the year I'll be on vacation and moving back to Finland. I haven't yet decided what will be the the number of the last post, but it's got to have a meaning. At least to me.

There has been readers from 34 countries so far, which is heart-warming. Alas, the number of hits has decreased back to 300 - 400 visits per month. In my heyday, I used to have that amount tenfold. Readers may have gotten fed up with my recurring themes and vulgar stories. Well, it's easier to finish blogging, when there's not a lot of those who are going to miss it.

But cheer up, there's still something to write about. And maybe I'll continue after the big move. Maybe. I'll let you know if/when that is going to happen. As soon as I know myself  

Idol(s) competitions are over, once again. I watched both the Swedish and the Finnish versions sporadically. Here's my verdict:

I must say that the Swedes chose the correct winner. Kevin sang perfectly and he clearly deserved to win. Alice was great too. Somehow I felt like she was happy to have achieved as much as she had, and she didn't really believe in her victory.

I sense a little bit of Ara effect here though. Kevin was from abroad and knew close to nothing about Swedish language. Now he had learned at least to say 'Tack så jättemycket!' which seemed to be enough. And Alice in the second place looked clearly like a Chinese. They both may have benefitted from their immigrant backgrounds, since the Swedish are eager to point out how equal they are. This time only the final duo was great per se, so there's no actual evidence about the Ara effect. So the Swedes got away with it...

The third one, Robin, sang very badly, out of tune almost all the time. I was afraid of him reaching the final. Also the young 16-year-old boy, what's-his-name, sang personally but out of tune. I wonder why the judges didn't say anything about it. They didn't dare..?

In Finland, the best singer and performer, Pete, was surprisingly left out of the final. It was a crying shame. Perhaps he was such a surefire finalist that everyone forgot to vote him? Accidents do happen.

The winner, Koop, may also have benefitted from him living abroad. Anyway, he had balls in his singing and I'm glad that he won eventually. At one point even he was singing clearly out of tune, but no-one seemed to notice care.

The second, Anna, wasn't that impressive. I mean the sound of her voice was ok, but the pitch wasn't. And again, the judges didn't want to bring that up. They weren't under oath, so they didn't have to tell 'the whole truth', I guess. To me, that's also manipulating.

It was interesting to compare these two Idol(s) competitions at the same time. I think that the Swedish version was of higher quality and better organized. On the other hand, they didn't have Jone, the legendary loud-mouth judge, which kind of makes the whole Finnish Idols show worthwhile.

It makes me smile to hear a Swede speak English and use Swedish pronounciation every now and then. Of course we Finns have the same kind of 'problems', but anyway. Especially the ts/ds phonestheme (äänne/ljud) is easily sounding like j/y. Hell, I need examples:

John (Yon)
Jessica (Yessica)
Just (Yust)
Jump (Yump)
Join (Yoin)

Etc. Ok, you got the picture. Otherwise the words are perfectly pronounced. I have no idea why it's so; maybe someone would like to tell me? These things are interesting to me, but I can't just go and ask. Someone might get offended by it, and that's not my purpose.

It must be the season to eat Lussekatter or Lussebullar, a Swedish bun that has saffron, the world's most expensive spice, and russins. I have read articles where they compare taste and prices of those buns in Stockholm. The first time I tasted a lussekatte I thought it was not fresh anymore. Later I found out that it was its unique taste. Maybe it's the saffron, I'm not sure, but there is some ingredient in it that tastes bad to me.

It read on Wiki pages that these buns are related to Lucia's day which is on hand, i.e. today. Still the name 'lusse' comes rather from 'lucifer', and indeed these buns were made to keep the devil out. Interesting detail: In English Wiki it says that 'lusse' comes from 'lucia', while the Swedish version denies that. I'm leaning on the Swedish this time.

Last time I ate one it was more delicious than the previous. You may wonder why I bother eating them since I don't fancy them. It's the curiosity, you know. If so many people like them, there must be something likeable in lussebullar. I have given them a fair chance. And, in addition, you can't get those in Finland. Not yet at least.

...forever Slussen, LOL! Those few who have read my drunken ’Götgata open’ story, can understand the meaning of this post. I simply had to see the view from Gondolen. Well, the place is closed on Sundays, but the bridge up there is open. I walked to the elevator and paid 10 crowns for the lift up. Students seemed to get a free ride once again.

The view wasn’t as impressive as I thought it would have been, but I could see the Slussen and Södermalm area pretty well. It was a clear day and there was quite many of us watching down and taking photos. It was alright. And I took some fabulous photos up there. Here’s a collage of some of the best, just for you:

What caught my eye at the very second I exited the elevator, was a strikingly visible crack all along the watchtower floor (pic 2). Even if it weren’t a dangerous crack, it should be fixed to give a feel of safety to people walking there (Remember my respective note in my Kista Science Tower post?). The concrete isn’t forever, unlike diamonds. There was vibration, when the train passed the building underground. I had no cup of coffee in my hand, but I could sense the vibration.

Katarinahissen, the old and ugly elevator artefact is worth the money spent, but you can visit the bridge up there without a cost. As I realized that the trip down via Katarinahissen would have also cost another 10 crowns, I decided to leave the other way. There was an exit and also a free entrance at Mosebacke. Just walk up the Götgatan street and turn left to Hökens gata. Up on the hill, close to Mosebacke restaurant and theatre there’s a gate leading to the bridge. It was a lucky break for me, because I had planned to go to another second-hand record shop which lies in Hökens gata. I saved 10 crowns and 10 minutes. On the other hand, I spent almost 400 crowns there, so after all, what’d I save?

The Mosebacke’s record-shop was so full of records, especially vinyls, that I had hard time fitting in. My extra kilos around my belly didn’t help either. When the records are put so tightly that you can’t browse them without trouble, it’s easier to give up. Dozens of boxes full of vinyls lying here and there, and no signs what they might include... Can’t make it inside the framework of my life. Sadly. But it was a worthwhile trip just the same.

Another incident worth mentioning happened when I came back from Slussen. There was a trumpet player near the Solna Centrum. He played ’Speak softly, love’, the famous Godfather theme as I walked to the Centrum. I spent about 30 minutes there and came back. The man was still playing the same song. I know it’s a long movie but still...

Yesterday I went out to lunch and have a drink with our team at the customer's. It was enjoyable. We ate the 'julbord', a Swedish buffet with seasonal (read: Christmas) food, in a restaurant in Ulriksdal, Solna. The place was old and beautiful, close to the Ulriskdals slott (castle). There were so many types of meat and fish available that I couldn't remember which was which when I started to eat.

Then we walked to Bergshamra subway station and travelled to Slussen. The idea of Götgata open was to drink a pint of beer in every bar from the beginning of Götgatan street till Medborgarplatsen, a square which lies in the midway of the street. There were 10-15 bars, pubs and coffee houses that served beer, cider and wine. The basic idea of drinking up in 30 minutes and then moving to the next target was abandoned. Lucky for me at least.

I drink like an amateur but there I was amongst others. Just as drunk. I'm not particularly proud of it, but I guess my co-workers were pleased to have me with. After one cider and 5 glasses of redwine I parted the company at Medborgarplatsen. As planned, but the others wanted to carry on.

Later I heard that the rest of the group had gone back to Slussen and visited the expensive restaurant Gondolen shortly and went back home to sleep. My money had run out conveniently, but I might have loved the view over Stockholm. The restaurant itself doesn't look pretty, looking from outside, but the city itself would have been well worth seeing.

The night was pretty bad. It could have been much worse, at least I didn't have to throw up. Today it's been better, but the slight hangover is casting its shadow on everything I've done since I woke up. I was lucky enough to have accidentally bought small bits of herring in tomato sauce, which spread on rye bread served as a breakfast for me. That taught me a lesson once again. I won't drink alcohol until Christmas time. Maybe a glass of redwine with another 'julbord' but that's it. I guess I'm about to give it up totally in near future. It just doesn't work on me like it should.

I finished reading a Swedish detective story paperback by Stieg Larsson, called Flickan som lekte med elden (The girl who played with fire). It is the second part of the Millennium trilogy. So I accidently started from the middle, but the book was an independent entity by itself. Therefore it didn’t matter. It was quite an achievement for me to finish a 632-page book solely by its page amount, since I’m not a fan of huge epics. I have read extremely large reference books, but they don’t count.

When I started it a few months ago, I felt like ’what the hell have I bought this time? I don’t understand any of this!’ I didn’t give up. Suddenly I got hooked on it. The author uses the same recurring words so often, kind of keywords, that as I had looked them up I could follow the story somewhat easily.

I had heard of Stieg Larsson from Amig-J last year, so that served as a recommendation. He is famous in Finland too and his books have been translated into Finnish. When I grabbed this paperback at Arlanda Airport, it had to be the original. There was no other way for me.

I don’t want to go into details of the story. There were some boring sections, but mostly it was exciting. Even if some of it wasn’t too believable, it didn’t matter. The book left me hunger for more. That’s one of its points, I guess. Furthermore, I learnt new interesting Swedish words, like 'surfitta' which has nothing to do with surfing, LOL!

While I was thinking of reading the other two, I came up with an interesting idea: I’ll buy the first one of the Millennium series in English and the third one in Finnish! That’s my kind of trilogy.  I want to compare how the mood of the book changes when written in other languages. Kind of testing, which is part of my nature these days. Yes, it sounds like showing off, but truely I consider it more like a challenge. I have a need to be proud of myself. Don’t you sometimes?

I had promised myself that the hell freezes before I will find myself watching ballet. I had told that to my wife too. You know, you have to set a limit somewhere. Last weekend I crossed the line.

It was my idea to see a ballet show. My wife wanted to go to Kungliga Operan (Royal Opera, or kinglish, LOL!), but we didn't know where to put our daughter in the meantime. She probably wouldn't care too much for loud music and  operatic singing. So we browsed the Kungliga Operan web site and found this ballet performance, Nut Cracker by Tchaikovsky, a Christmas fairy tale. I paid for the tickets via web and printed them out.

It was a Saturday matinée. Since the opera house lies close to Kungsträdgården in centrum, I thought we'd make it there within an hour from my place. For reasons not to be repeated here, we managed to leave fifteen minutes late. When we arrived the Kungliga Operan, it was 15 to three.

The doorman took a look at my printed tickets, saying something about how difficult they were to read because I hadn't cut the tickets out from the A4, which was full of TicNet and Opera ads or something. He kind of kindly said 'think about it next time'. There won't be next time, dude...

The good side about the house was that they had garderobes, toilets and refreshments in each floor. Thus the crowd was divided into several places, avoiding huge lines while entering and exiting the show. And during intermission.

The bad side about the house was the navigation to your seat. It was more than difficult to find your place, especially when you were in a hurry and had your first visit there.

The show was alright. I like old melodic tunes of Nut cracker. I remember having heard two of them earlier. There was one beautiful tune in the second part that I really loved. It had notes I hadn't realized anyone that old could have composed. One theme made me smile: it was composed in 6/8 time with classical (classical indeed) chord changes in pop music: C, Am, F, G or alike!

I didn't really understand what the ballet was all about. There was a Christmas tree, dancing decorations, pepper cakes, children with Christmas gifts. The mice were great. It left me unaware of the actual point of the story, because there was nothing for me to follow. There seemed to be a happy end, although I didn't see any particular unhappy section there at all.

Our daughter has been dancing ballet for many years now and she has lost the spark sporadicly. I hope this experience helps her find it back. At least she was pretty excited about it after the show.

Christmas time is good mobile-selling time each year. CITY newspaper published its list of 20 greatest mobiles at the moment.

To my astonishment, a Nokia N85 was a number one in their list. Not that it wouldn't deserve it, but it's Nokia phone. Finnish. Apple's iPhone 3G was in the third place and the first local (Swedish-Japanese) cellphone (Sony Ericsson W380i) was at number 7. I heard from a friend that Metro has just released a list of their own. There a winner was a SE, and N85 was a way behind. They don't really test the phones; they base their judgment more like on look and feel.

In Finland, the usual winner is a SE mobile. I don't know why, but that's how it's been for ages now. Maybe the Finns are too embarrassed to brag about themselves? Well, the Swedes are not.

There was a piece of propaganda in the CITY article though: a huge picture with two laughing women using clearly SE's. There was a title in big print: "Den klarar allt du kan vänta dig" - and a very small print below it: "M3:s testare om topptelefonen Nokia N85". (It does everything you can expect - M3's tester about top mobile Nokia N85). I haven't even touched that one, so I really have no opinion of it.

I have browsed however iPhone, SE's Xperia X1 and Samsung's i900 Omnia a little. The last two were in the lower part of the list and I agree. They were both quite difficult for a daily use. iPhone was a little better but it lacked many features I'd want. Sure it looks cool. The best example of this is Samsung's U900 Soul (at number 6) which was described like this: 'it's not perfect, camera is semi-bad and browser is very much under criticism. But you'll get much coolness factor for money's worth.' It seems that being cool is more important than being usable.

This Autumn I was shopping with my mother-in-law. She wanted me, the 'nerd' of the family, to give support in purchasing a new mobile. Born, working and living all her life in the city of Nokia she couldn't have anything other than a Nokia mobile. In a shop in Nokia there were no other brands for sale, so that one was solved easily. She definetely didn't want a camera phone, but they all had a camera integrated in it. So she choce one of the cheapest models naturally. Actually, there was very little I had to do there. It was somewhat funny when the salesman was continuing his salespeech, even after the deal had been closed: 'there is bluetooth and radio and you can send an MMS, take pictures...' She needed none of that. Not so many 70+ would. The most important part of the phone for her was the size of the keyboard and the colour of the phone.

I'm not planning to get a new phone for myself, but I think I should need a GPS device soon. It's been so frustrating to find myself lost so often. If I won't get one for Christmas, I may be forced buy it afterwards. It would be even cheaper that way, I guess.

It was again the time of the year to spend together with co-workers of our company. The whole-day-lasting event started at nine o’clock at the office. There we spent two hours by watching boring slides, and once again introducing ourselves to the others. I have noticed that there are certain type of people who love to tell about themselves. Well, I don’t. My actions speak for themselves... d’oh!

I managed to get our boss slightly freaked-out at one point. He showed us our new slogan. For some reason he had written it wrong in the headline and he didn’t notice it. After he had shown the whole show, it ended with the same line, but this time it was correct. Then I had to ask him in front of others: ’Now there are two slogans, which one is the right one (as if I didn’t know)?’ He really lost his self-control for a second, but wasn’t ready to verify my claim by browsing back to page one. The person who doesn’t want anything written couldn’t escape from this one. He just continued as if nothing had happened. It was nice to hear one of us say that let’s hope the second slogan is the right one, because we have it already printed in our T-shirts. That comment made my day. Seriously, since we have paid someone a lot to design a slogan for us, we should stick to it to the letter - not confusing clients with variations.

Then we used taxis and cars to get to...... Lidingö! WTF! I @ Lidingö just because of these parties. It’s not THAT special a place. But our boss happens to live there, and he likes to get home as easily as possible. That’s how I have figured this out. That neck of the woods is for the rich and the hillbillies.

Yup, we started out with bowling. Hmm... we have bowled already once, that was like last Winter. Now we were in Lidingö instead. The place was actually nice. My best result (10 throws) was 116, which was good enough for me. This time I didn’t drink alcohol, because I have noticed that it makes my throws drastically worse.

The whole tournament Stockholm against Malmö was rudely interrupted by our boss, who said: ’Taxis are here, let’s go!’ I had a ball in my hand, ready to score. Speaking of coitus interruptus, LOL! Did it have anything to do with the fact that he had thrown three 0-point throws in a row recently, I can’t tell; I can only speculate. I asked him later, which city won the bowling competition, just to tease him (you know, I can be a real pain sometimes when I’m pissed-off, and elsewhere too ), and he said Stockholm. Maybe so, but it wasn’t fair that some people got to bowl more than 4 rounds and some only 3-something.

Well, it’s good not to miss the target. We were right on the target to get to Hamam on time. It must’ve been important for our boss to introduce to our workers his most excellent finding so far: the Turkish bath and restaurant. It didn’t matter diddly-squat to him that I had been there twice already.

In the lockerroom a 5-krona pawn was needed to get a locker locked. I had long forgotten it, but our boss who seems to be a casual customer of Hamam, should have remembered it and thus taken care of it. Now we had to go to the register and ask if they could exchange crowns and paper money into 5-crown coins.

There was no organized idea of what to do there. That might have worked with a group of five, but now there were about 15 of us! It really was crowded. In the steamroom I burned my leg. Hot steam had been condensed in a flat bowl which fell on my foot. I went back to the shower immediately, but there was no cold water available. Yes, the accident was due to the crowded small room and an unorganized way of handling things.

The Hamam massage was a shortened version of what we had had before. It took only about 5 minutes - instead of 15-20 minutes of humiliation. We didn’t even have to take our swimming suits off. It was more like a bath than a massage this time. It was ok just the same, but still nothing to brag about I think.

The ’fantastic’ sauna near the sea was also on the agenda. I was the first one to go there, only to find out it was totally cold! As it was an electric sauna, I simply put it on. I was waiting for it to get hot by sitting in the lukewarm steamroom. When someone brought the drinks in, there was only beer available. Goddammit! This is as egoistic as it gets. No cider, not even soda or Ramlösa. If our boss preferred something else than beer, I’m sure we would have had something else too. I lost my mood and walked away from sauna. Yes, this time it was really fantastiskt! Later I heard from Jaime that some Swede (or our boss himself) had been ’tweaking’ the stove by shutting it down and putting the timer on! Nice. Just blew it.

I spent some time in yacuzzi outside with some work mates. I wasn’t in the mood for talking Swedish, not even English at that point. Then I went back inside, and started waiting for the others to follow me. I could have needed a drink, but instead I drank water from a water machine. Well, it was cool at least.

After a long while, we were getting dressed and ready for a dinner (middag), which was more like a supper. Since we started so early, it wasn’t that late yet, although it was dark outside. We had to wait for our boss to come back from the sauna, maybe for a half an hour. And when he came, he was all over the place, hurrying everyone up. The Turkish food was pretty good, even better than the last two times. Redwine was also terrific. Then I asked our boss, where are we going next, as it was like 5:30 p.m. or something, and he said that that was it.

That wasn’t it, but some Finns do lie, LOL! When I and Jaime had left with a taxi, he had invited everyone to his house. Quite a nasty move from his side, but I didn’t mind. Not anymore. And I’ve been to his place already! What makes it more interesting is that it’s also in Lidingö. Can you expect that no-one would notice the secret motive behind this? Hell, it’s convenient to end the party at your place, just drink yourself comatose and go sleeping in your bed.

By now I’ve been in Lidingö several times: in Hamam 3 times, once bowling, once in another hotel and once in his place, just barely missed the second visit. Like on many occasions, once is enough. That applies to Lidingö as well.

As icing of the cake, we didn’t get any Christmas gifts at all. Maybe we’ll get some in two weeks, but I have had this bad feeling since two months ago, that all we will get is the welcome kit we got from Finland - having e.g. that T-shirt with the correctly written slogan, LOL! It was not shared there as a Christmas gift, but according to my experience here I wouldn’t be too surprised to find out that it was all we got here this year. Yippee!

This is not a paid advertisement on behalf of the company I work for, if someone is wondering. I wouldn’t want to invite anyone to work here, but for the sake of discreetness I’m not willing to reveal its name.

I must admire the trouble that Lulu, a book publisher and manufacturer in the web, has gone through for me. As I have mentioned before, I used Lulu for printing my book. The first edition was ok, but there were several defects in the second one. I complained about it to Lulu and they responded. They wanted to see photos of the defects I had mentioned. So I took some and sent them to Lulu.

After a while they sent me one book. It was perfect, so then they sent me nine more. With a bill, but without due date and reference number. It's possible that they draw the money directly from my credit account, but I don't like that. If they do, I'll quit the cooperation with them. The extra ten copies should be free to me, but let's see what happens.

UPS, which is the same kind of company as DHL as far as I'm concerned, has a pretty odd office in Bromma. Visiting there is one of the weirdest experience I've had so far. It's beyond describe, you have to live it yourself...

I don't know why Lulu switched ordinary post to UPS. UPS delivers the parcel to your home door, but only if you're at home to receive it. Otherwise you must fetch it from UPS office. And never before 18:30. It doesn't say anywhere, but that's the time they promise to have the packet available. I have tried to pick it up earlier; I know they are not bluffing...

Now Lulu pays for better service, but actually is giving the customers less. Not so many people are at home at 13:30 on a working day. When the 'normal' post was doing the delivery, it was much easier and closer to get it from Solna Business Park, where the local post office locates. I got the first edition from there last Summer.

Finding UPS office in Bromma is pretty challenging, as I described in one of my previous posts. Now I knew where to find it by foot, but by car it was a whole new ballgame. Driving through Sundbyberg on the Bromma side of the town was irritating to a great extent. There were a lot of dead-end streets, one-way streets and other streets that basically didn't lead anywhere. I have been lost in Bromma in the dark, forget about Disneyland, LOL!

I wrote this to give some credit to Lulu (not literally), since I have put them down a bit lately. It seems that they are really putting effort to do a good job there. At the moment I'm just a semi-happy customer...