Brighter Than A Thousand Suns

Got home yesterday from the rock-ferry. Jack Daniels had arranged a rockcompetition were the final was held on a cruise to Åland and back. I was invited as a journalist and went on the boat to write about it.
All in all it was a great trip, with a blistering set from Mustach and maybe a bit too many Jack and ginger-ales.
But now it is saturday and me and Anna are on our way in to Stampen to meet with Tomas, Elisabeth and Mira for some beer and blues-jam. Will be fun as always.

Sat up last night and watched a great game were Dallas beat Detroit. Dallas golie Turco was having the game of his life, he took everything.

88-92-96

Had a bit of a bean-fiasco yesterday, but the chili turned out pretty good anyway. Had it for lunch today also, so I think that is enough chili for awhile. Today I will make fresh pasta with basil and oliveoil. Sounds really hard, doesn't it?

Started watching Beowulf yesterday. Did not look as bad as I had expected at all. Was really annoyed when it came out that it was animated, but haveing seen the first half I understand way. Not sure how "watchable" it would have been with a monster that spent the good part of 15 minutes ripping humans in two, eating them, crushing them and so on with real actors. This way it was a bit easier to watch, and did not have all those Saw vibes. This way it was something i could watch without completely losing interest.

Listening to: Six.BySeven (everything they have done)

Nightclubbing.

Today I will make chili.
The great thing about making chili is that no one can agree on where it comes from, how to make it or what to put in it, so you are pretty much on your own, which is nice. The only thing that people seem to agree on is that there is supposed to be both beef and pork in it, so I will make a vegetarian today. I have just been to the store and bought some vegetables and Anna have some beans soaking in water for me. Then I will make a playlist (yes, my complete and utter nerdiness reaches this far) on my iPod for the chili, crank it up, open a beer and start cooking. The only problem with that is that I forgot to buy the beer, so I will just have to skip that part sadly. It means that the chili will not be as good, but what can you do.

Reading the new Ian Rankin right now. It is not a Rebus book, but pretty god so far, the characters are not as full but the story is interesting.

Listening to: Tonight Franz Ferdinand, Danzig - IV, Council Estate Electronics.

The Carny.

Mick Harvey just announced that he is leaving The Bad Seeds. Mick Harvey has always been the only constant thing in The Bad Seeds since the formation in 1983. And before that he formed both The Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party with Nick Cave. So this is not really good news, I had no problem with Blixa leaving a while back, but Mick Harvey. That is not good.

Just watched the NHL All Stars Skills Competition, and that was both fun and boring as usual. Tomorrow it is time for the game, and I will try and see that if I can. Not many Swedes in it this year though, only Lundqvist.

Anna came home from Minneapolis on friday, and she has some serious jetlag right now. She has been up at around 4AM two nights in a row now, hungry and unable to sleep. Hopefully it will get better soon or she will have a tough week ahead of her.

Listening to: Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Let Love In

Vanilla Radio.

It is snowing here. And I kind of thought that the winter was over. I mean, we are not really used to getting snow this often nowadays. It seems like lately winter has been a snowstorm at the end of october, green and warm christmas and then a really cold march. But maybe those days are over too.

Saw The Wrestler, which was amazing. And for someone who has being following Mickey Rourke for as long as I have it felt really nice to get to enjoy a movie becasue it has been awhile (Domino was below par for both Tony Scott and Mickey, not to mention the 90's, man did I have to watch a lot of crap in those days to support him). But The Wrestler was really good, reminded me a lot an old, old movie he did when he still had the looks called Homeboy. And no do not look it up, it is not very good.

Almost done with my Heavy Metal book, and since I am still reading it I could mention that I have for the last 4 days been listeing almost only to Kreator, Celtic Frost, Fear Factory, Death and of course Metallica and Slayer.

Waltz In Black

I have just discovered that there is a channel in Sweden showing my favorite tv-chef, Keith Floyd. I discovered Floyd while studying in Växjö and got hooked right away. He travels around the world and cooks the food of the area on a portable gas stove while drinking way too much wine and talking constantly. Sometimes he fails with the food but most of the times it seems to turn out great. But they are great cooking shows, and the whole reason while I fell in love with food-tv.
And then when I moved to the US, Annas brother Nicholas introduced me to my all time favorite tv-show: Iron Chef. A dead serious Japanese show where chefs compete in what the call kitchen stadium to become the chef supreme. Absolutely brilliant TV.
And when I went back to Minneapolis for christmas, Iron Chef was the first tv show I watched. And now there is channel here that shows Floyd. Spent the morning watching 3 episodes in a row. Well, it is sunday morning after all.
And one more thing. Keith Floyd loves The Stranglers. That alone should be enough.

Karmacoma

Just finished Cloverfield. What a great movie! I loved it! I had heard not so good things about this movie and that you got seasick from watching it, so I never saw it when it came out. Then I had this thing that since it is only 1.17 long I thought it was too much money, which is actually ridiculous. I mean a good movie, is a good movie. And Breaking The Waves was almost 3 hours and I still regret seeing that.
But back to Cloverfield. I really liked the fact that you got no information what so ever, that is was just a night in someones life, no start and no ending, really cool. And the special effects were really nice. It was almost like a Blair Witch but done with a lot of money and much, much better actors.
It also made me miss New York. It has been a while since a movie made me do that. But this one had some real good New York scenes and you always knew where they were.

Listening to: the soundtrack to Pi

It's Grim Up North

Made som hummus today, after a few smaller disasters it turned out really well, but now the kitchen looks like Manchester after WW2. But the hummus was good and I ate it on a giant sub I made with what was left in the fridge.
Watched two episodes of the Rebus BBC show based on Ian Rankins novels about Inspector Rebus at The Edinburgh police. The books are amazing and I was curious to see what they had done with the TV-show. Well, after two episodes I can say that I will not see anymore. All of the things that made Rebus who he is was gone and replaced with cliches from other copshows, really lame and extremely disapointing. The only good thing was that he looked right, just like I had imagined him, and so did Siobahn and the flat he lived in. Always something i guess.

Reading a book right now about the history of Heavy Metal, pretty interesting. It makes me want to listen to everything I read about, so right there had been a LOT of metal.
Yesterday I went through the whole discography of Voivod and a bunch of Celtic Frost and today there has been a lot of Slipknot and Slayer and Venom.

Man, I am so tired today. Went and saw The Stranglers last night and they did not go on until 22.00. Which meant that they were done at midnight, at which time I walked to the subway and rode home, drank some water, had a sandwich and went to bed at about 1.00. I got up at 4.40 this morning and worked for 8 hours.
Man, I am so tired today.

Anyway, I love The Stranglers and have never seen them. But the problem is that the singer/guitarplayer Hugh Cornwell left the band in 1990 and they have not really been any good since then. So when I saw that they were coming to Sweden for the first time in 15 years I really felt that I wanted to see them but was not sure that I was willing to pay for it.
But they really surprised me, the band was tight as hell and the setlist pretty much perfect. Opened with Get a grip and played all the songs I wanted to hear Duchess, Peaches, No More Heroes, Tank, Nice N'Sleazy, Hanging Around, etc, etc.

Southland Tales is on TV tonight and I am thinking about seeing it, but everyone I know that has seen it say that sucks so I am not so sure.

Death Take Your Fiddle.

Anna left this morning for Minneapolis again. We came home a week ago and had just gotten back to normal sleeping habits when she needed to go again. Another day, another funeral.
She left on a Continental flight and hopefully it is better then the last one we took with them. The personel was extremely rude and the flight was just unpleasant.
But Anna needed to leave on very short notice and she did not have any choice.

Today I cooked a chili that turned out really well, I think that I have finally mastered the art of making it hot and full without do to much of either. Today I used pretty smoky peppers and it turned out really well. I cooked it for over 5 hours and I think that helped. This time I forgot to get honey though, but it worked really well without it. So we will see if I will even use that the next time.

Listened a lot to the new Franz Ferdinand singel Ulysses today. Great single, I really like the direction they have taken on the new album.

RON ASHETON R.I.P.

One the greatest guitarists of all time was found dead today in his home in Ann Arbour, Michigan. The Stooges were one the best and one of my all time favorite bands ever. There is no end on to how influental and how much they have meant to me.
I saw The Stooges two times while living in New York. The first time was right when they had first re-united at the Roseland Ballroom, and that is one the best shows I have ever seen. It was loud, intense and crazy.
The second time was at a garage-festival on Randalls Island together with Bo Diddley, New York Dolls, Dirty Pretty Things and a bunch of other great bands. A tornodo was coming in during the show and it had to be cut short. Still great though, and the band was on fire.

So pay your respects today by playing The Stooges on maximun volume.

Dreams Never End

Jetlag is not my friend. Left Minneapolis on the 29th and after a very stressed lay-over in Amsterdam landed in Stockholm on the 30th. Me and Anna had, when we went to bed, been awake for 28 hours so we had no problem falling asleep and then staying that way for 13 hours. Sadly this did not cure the jetlag and we have found ourselves every night since then wide awake at 4 in the morning. One night I even got up at 4 and sat reading until it was time to go to work. Not a very good day.

But today it is saturday, really damn cold, dark and gloomy and everything else that a saturday in january should be. Anna is knitting and I am reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. So far an excellent book. I really like the story and the world that he has created in this book.

Listening to:
New Order - Movement (Collector's Edition)
New Order - Low Life (Collector's Edition)