Last couple of days

The cold continues. Minus 16. It's unusually cold winter this year.

Snow covered house. Looks like someone sprayed fake snow on the windows, but it's real.

Changing water in the aquarium. Must be done regularly.

Taking the dog for a walk. Streets almost un-walkable due to the snow.

This old bag told me to be silent on the train. I told her: Hey Bag-lady, wait! I have something for you...and I gave her the middle finger, rigid and stiff. Childish of me: Yes! But I'm sure she sat in this part of the train just to tell people off.

The Swedish way. Be silent and don't get out of line. "No Strong odors" it says as well on this train-sign.

Party at Joacims in Mora. He had his 40:th birthday. We had a great time. Outdoors in a hot tub in minus 16 with strong winds. I stuck my shoulders up and it became covered with ice. Rolled around in the snow afterwards. What an awful feeling that was. Penises went smaller than ever, left and right. I don't put the pics here since people might be embarrassed being under-dimentioned. We went snow-mobiling. Great fun. Fast and really powerful machines. 140 bhp.

Joacim had arranged hot dogs and beers at the lake where we were driving. I think Oscar took the speed record. 123 Km/h. It was a too short lake to go faster. I took it a little easier going only 100. It felt unsafe in the strong wind and big snow drifts. Later in the evening we partied and ate great. The chef was "the real Swedish chef" The one they used for inspiration in the muppet show.

On the way home there were severe problems with the trains. Some freight train had derailed in the snow and it made everything late.

These were the tracks in Mjölby. They worked. You should have seen the ones that didn't.

Jennys car broke down. It was an electrical wire. It took them one hour to fix and it costed SEK 8000:- (€ 800:-). If you like to get screwed and pay 1000% too high prices, please get a Smart car! SEK 4000:- for an oil change...what a bargain.

Met Pontus in Stockholm yesterday. We hade some "semlas" at Tösses bakery. The best I ever had. Pontus went to town on the semlas...
This is our manager/arrranger-guy Joakim Tjelta. We found these speakers that use the glass in the shop window as a resonator (no speaker cones). Never seen that before.

Cat shit

House pets (pests) can be annoying. This was William's cat (scat) that went to the bathroom (may I go to the bathroom...in your mouth?) on a hat. It took the trouble jumping up on top of the table. Note: William is a training freak. If you take a picture anywhere at anytime in the apartment you will see a power shake-shaker at all times somewhere.

William had some serious dry heaves!

More snow

Yesterday it started again. This is getting a bit annoying now. Where I live we have a lot of growing fields (Kotipelto) and it makes the snow blow in over the roads right a way. This is the road to our village. We have had sub freezing temperatures for like two months straight now and it will continue for quite some time.

Stratovarius - tonight only.

Went to a Strato-show yesterday in Lund, Sweden.
The show was really great. The musicianship in this band is fantastic. Solos from Jens (my brother), Lauri and Mathias were mindboggeling. A bach duet with Jens and Lauri. They call it Airbag! It's unusually high quality of the solos in general. The guys play with such ease. They don't even look at their instruments while playing extremely complex and fast runs. Drummer-Jörg and singer-Timo in great condition. Being a drummer myself and been seeing Jörg 100 times I think he plays better than ever. Consistant and steady.
Sound was unbelievably good. Clear, powerful and you could hear every little detail. Every part of the drumkit equally loud and massive. Every bass tone, every background vocals as loud as everything else.
Lights were great. They had seven moving lights assigned for Jörg, mostly as color changers. Generally you could see everyone perfectly at all times.

If you have the possibillity you should go check them out tonight at Brew house in Gothenburg.
Bring earplugs, it was loud.

Rehearsing with In Flames

I have been playing a lot lately.
I use my Ipod with headphones and play along. I have a lot of different music in it. I usually take one band and learn almost all their songs. Today I'm playing with In flames. They have good sounding stuff and quite a few songs are fast which is good practice.

Maybe I take Meshuggah tomorrow. It's a bit more demanding mentally, but also quite interesting and fun.