aaaaaarrrgh!!!

eeek! the guy at the desk behind me in the lab just powered up something in divX that had a sound track consisting of slow 50s jazz and running water...you tell me the guy isn't watching porn. Especially when you factor in the fact that he tried to disguise it by turning it down slowly to mute...but there was a hastened jolt to begin with...aaaargh!!!

Margaret Thatcher on a cold day...margaret thatcher on a cold day....

I swear officer I didn't know she was only 17...

God Jul Soffan Potatis!
Merry Christmas Couch Potatoes!

Did everyone get Keira Knightley for Christmas? I'm assuming mine is on the way and lost in the Swedish post...although I do have a message to pick up a package today so maybe it is in that?

Although I was a bit disappointed that my Kiruna Christmas plans fell through I've had an interesting Christmas in Stockholm with a few mates from around the traps...spent christmas with Dimed's family which meant I had a Syrian Aramaeic Swedish Christmas...try having a conversation at a table where everyone only speaks Aramaeic or Arabic, and perhaps a hint of Swedish. Luckily my conversational Swedish is improving greatly so I was able to discuss some things. Other than that I had a relaxing few days staying at Aleria's. We cooked up several big Christmas feast and celebrated Lisa from Victoria's 21st birthday (she was born on the 25th December) by going out on the town. The only funny thing was that we all (Dimed, Aleria, Aleria's two sisters, Silky (Hawaii), Lisa (Aus) and myself) went to our usual Stockholm club and got inside and paid the rather high entry fee to find out that it was Rainbow night at Sturdekompaniet...hmmm...ooops...a Swedish Red Garter. Anyways, this didn't really bother any of us (cept Silky who clung to me and Dimed everytime a girl danced near her) because it meant the music was better and the crowd more...err...lively? So we danced away the night and crawled home at 7am in the morning (that's why I sounded a little croaky when I called fam...sorry!).

Stockholm was blooooooody cold...neared -20 the first day we were there...I froze...if it wasn't for the new Aussie Wollen jumper mum sent me that I have since dubbed 'Rolf Harris' for reasons of creative intensity I would surely have been an Aussie Popsicle. Thanks mum! Note to Dave for when you get here...make sure you get off the plane in Arlanda ready...you'll be boarding in 40C and disembarking in -20...takes balls in my books! Or rather took balls...seeing as they will be frozen off.

I am still waiting on peoples to fill me in on their Christmas plans...i.e. Nats, Lis, Mere, Lachy, all the boys...slackers!!!!!! Email NOW!

OK, I have to bolt so that the techies can reinstall my account. Good to post for you all...It snowed today so I'm gunna go extreme sledding again...note to mum...is my insurance up to date??

Heh heh. Oh yeah, btw, there are some incredibly incriminating photos of me up on the web if you can find them...damn those 200 people with cameras at the goodbye dinner...all I can say is thank God the video is too big to put on the web. :)

Happy New Year Friends And Family And Small Furry Creatures At The Marshall Residence!!

I know I have a well earned reputation as a master of spinning shit - my infamous ability to take 3 pages of email to invite several people to a BBQ resulted in a unanimous decision to force me to provide a summary section both at the top and the bottom of each email. But geez, if I had ANYTHING on the beer swilling whirlwind of a pink tornado that I call my sister Jackie, then I would give it all up and move to radio land too! If you don't know what I mean, try to understand her 'Couch Story' without having to reread any part of it :) Pure maniacal babble the nth parallelitical degree. :)

Yesterday I put on a post-'Empty The Kegs Party' breakfast to repay all those people who let me stay at their house and provided me with breakfast when I was living outside of Råslätt with the Wessens. In the usual style it fell nothing short of complete, with the stove firing on at 9:30am and the skillet not leaving my greasy mitt until 3:30pm! :) Cooking for 12 in a small (but clean) kitchen is a very fun experience, especially when coupled with a few breakfast shots of Sambuca and a background ambience provided by the most talented of Australian rock artists. My personal 'breakfast' effort was limited to :

3 cups of tea
3 scooners of OJ
1 glass of chocolate milk
1 bowl of musli
yoghurt
1 banana
1 orange
3 pancakes
1 crepe'
4 eggs
5 rashes of bacon
3 hash browns
4 pieces of toast
2 kineka bread with cheese
2 sausages
1 small serving of onion

So as you can imagine, I only settled for a light dinner :) Still, it was most appreciated by those who attended, which again leads me to consider opening a catering company here in Sweden seeing as very few of these bastards understand the whole concept of 'flavour'... :) Many thanks to mum for leaving me with such excellent breakfasting skills!

The 'Empty The Kegs Party' at Kåren was great fun - the concept is that basically they have to clear the beer before the Xmas break, so it gets cheaper (or at least by swedish standards) every hour. Couple this with the fact that about 100 exchange students were going home over the ensuing few days and you have yourself a mammoth party. One room was playing old school 80s remix techno (hmm...flash backs of the bad taste party) and the central room had a live band going...scary thing about Swedish live bands...they all have a repetoire heavily laced with ACDC, Midnight Oil, Crowded House and other homely bands! A blast was had by all. Barbara only managed to drunkenly hit me in the head 4 times on the dance floor (2 times with ring, once with back of hand and once with the elbow...asch...) which is becoming a rather painful tradition. Mental note : find a different dance partner...one who can keep up ;) On that note, success may have been found with a friend of Juha's...will work on that one but it was interesting to find a swede who didn't dance like a wilting flower flailing in the afternoon breeze! Pity the drunken Swiss girl needed babysitting and I was the only one sober enough to do it...but did she have to push the cute red topped swede out of the way????? ;P

Much distress entered my heart this morning...the temp. guage climbed back above 0, which meant all the hard work I had put into my Ice Lounge was ruined :( Grr. Silly Global Warming.

In other news, we went Xtreme Sledding on Wednesday prior to the ETK party - basically this involved purchasing a $10 plastic children's sled, gathering a few mates and a digital camera or two, and then finding the most thickly wooded alpine slope we could, and hurtle ourselves down it. Definately a worthwhile pursuit, and the sled held together reasonably well... :) Couple this with some alpine boarding planned for tomorrow (gotta love free snowboarding) and you've got yourself my annual dosage of Weekend At Dunks Silly Behaviour :)

Everyone leaves this weekend, leaving a handful of us in Jönköping to weather the weather. Hopefully a temp. change comes through, or I might miss out on my much sort after 'white Xmas'. Damn that. If it's not white by the 24th, I'm catching the first bus North!!!

OK, I have to go finish some stuff and bake a cake, so I'll chat later!

Hej då!

Big Thanks To Pato, Jimmi & The We@D Crew!!!

Click Here For Your Thank You

Seriously awesome getup guys...loved the Ginwear label speal. So I thought I'd repay you with a 2001 flashback by shaving a frollet (frontal mullet).

Thanks so much! As you can see from the photo I am a very pale man here in this country. Eeek.

In other news, my Xmas plans fell through because the company we were going to book with went bankrupt (shite) so I will be ginnin' around in Jönköping until the New Year...might go to Stockholm with some mates but we'll see. In the mean time, I have a project or two to keep me busy. Here is the 10 day Xmas project list :

- bulk charcoals
- bulk guitar
- build an igloo and spend the night in it
- build a couch, coffee table & two chairs out of ice for the balcony (I am loving this pro)
- scan photos gallore :)
- read people's emails about their Xmas (hint hint!)

Should be a blast, and then Runge arrives on the 9th. HELL YEAH!!!

In other news, Barbara from Switzerland is moving in with Patrik and I which is awesome. So I have two cool room mates in a legendary appartment soon to have matching Ice Furniture! :) Yay! And I also now have a super clean kitchen - spent 3 1/2 hours cleaning the oven and stove yesterday (student kitchens...ewww!) so now I have a nice clean space with which to cook. Yes, I know I am a kitchen nazi. :)

OK, love and cheers. Will chat soon!

i think i broke me...

Hmmm...somewhere along the lines I forgot that I haven't been drinking for a few months, and on the whole I've had very little alcohol here, and then someone gave me a bottle of galliano sambuca...and now all I know is that have a woosy head and a report to finish, and I didn't even finish the bottle! How soft is that??

In other news : HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATALIE!!! I would have called today (even though it was yesterday..but I was in Göteborg) but I was kind of hungover and not vertical. But happy B'day all the same darling.

Mum, Dad, sorry...but the hair must go :)
The stupid weather here means I have permanant crazy hair. But don't worry, it will grow out by spring.

Top 10 Signs You Need More Sunlight :

#2 - You develop strange cravings for golf.

Yay! Saw the sun for the first time in a month or so yesterday. It was beautiful the whole day. It's dark now, but still...the sun people...THE SUN!!!!

Postal address for the crew at large (this will hopefully be the last time I have to freakin' move!!)

Rowland Marshall
Kärrhöksgatan 94 Van 5
556 12 Jönköping
Sweden

tack så mycket.

I dag jag har en Svensk grammartisk tenta, och jag sov inte bra i kväll. Jag vär upp spelar om Gran Turismo tre med min rum kompisar Patrik Hyunh, en Kinisk Svensk från Oland. Hur gick din semester? Jag tänker att gör till Abisko på semester snart, men jag kan inte köpa en biljetta, så jag vill hemma på julen. ;(
OK, jag måsta gå nu, so vi ses. hej då!

Hands up if you've performed a strip tease for 200 people...

Hi every body! It has been a few days since I last posted a message, and that's because I've been moving to my new residence in the student village. All is peachy cool there, and I will have plenty more photos of my room, etc. within a few days. Things are still going very well, although the weather has taken a dive into the -10ish region...but still pretty nice. Hope you are all enjoying the immense heat...I reckon I picked the right time to flee to a snowbound country!

It's now only 30 days until D-Day (when Runge arrives from Aus for a week) and I am hell keen to catch up with some mates.

Thanks to Nats for owning up to the glasses and red wine...I've since shuffled her name up the list in my little black book a few steps :)

I'd be keen to know what people have planned for Xmas...I know a lot of you are working which sucketh mucheth, but in my absense I hope someone is organising a big beach party or BBQ. I know for sure that Giraffe (Cadden) is hell keen for a beach visit. I have Simon on record for saying I am responsible for a noticable decrease in female attendance at parties since my departure, but I think it just boils down to the fact he is a smelly chemical engineer who will most likely end up plotting world domination using chemicals, green hair, a big smile on a white face and a penchance for boxing gloves, springs and cardboard cutouts of women! So perhaps Simone and G should get together and host a massive BBQ. Go hard guys!

Oh, and can I put out a request for a few christmas presents in the form of bulk photos emailed to me? Tack så mycket!

It's 'return to Think Geek' time of the year again :) Here are some new cool things :)

Forever Flashlight
With This I Could Finally Make My Dream MnMs Arthouse Picture "A Day In The Life"
Fridge Coolness
Still Cool
Still Cooler
Still Coolest - Brim Full of Tanky Goodness!

Oh, by the way...someone anonymous left a package at my house the other day at my birthday party. I don't know if it was for me...but mum opened it and it contained red wine and two glasses. So would the person/s who left it please announce themselves to the world so I can thank them or return them if they weren't meant for me! (perhaps you were going to another party afterwards...hrmph...ditching my party...I dunno)!! It also begs the question...why TWO glasses? Were ya hopin' to get lucky? (please be a girl please be a girl please...)

Oh man, I have got to stop looking at pictures of Queensland beaches and rainforests and friends...I AM SO FREAKING HOMESICK!! :)

Bloody christmas.

Snowboarding is the coolest sport on the planet. It's been three years, and I've finally found something (besides women) that is almost as interesting as rock climbing. Just my bloody luck that when I return home the nearest decent ski field is in New Zealand. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a patriotic bugger, but let's face it, Good Australian Snow is a terrible oxymoron. So yeah, once again falling for the unachieveable. I am considering taking my cue from a good mate here and ditching my plans to cycle around Europe. The new plan involves buying a combi van and fixing a roof rack - on one side of the rack go the surf boards, the other side the snow boards, in the boot go the Mountain Bikes, and around the outside of the car I'll glue climbing holds. The plan is, when one item gets dusty, it's time to change location :)

If you're interested in joining Rowley's 2005 Epic Europa Odyssey, please express your interest by emailing me here.

In other news, I love the honesty of the Swedish people. At the ski field, if you don't want to carry your board around for a while whilst taking photos or scouting the track with the instructor you just lean it up against a tree. I saw countless chalets with thousands of dollars of ski gear sticking in the snow outside the door whilst they were off eating dinner...cracked me up. Such a nice country. And I have experienced it first hand today - in September I left a very important CD in one of the disc drives at school and thought it was lost for ever...and then this morning I walk into the class room today and someone has propped it up on the board. You've got to love these people, and I sure as hell do.

Those wonderful people at SAAB Combitech Systems told me the other day that it was possible to have a dual contract with their Adelaide branch allowing me to work 6 months in Sweden and 6 months in Australia year in year out. Rock on. I can enjoy the beautiful summer of Sweden, head home for Spring and Xmas, and then duck back in time to catch the 24 hour Spring ski season. Boo yah!!

Oh, and one last thing...this here is for Matt...it's from an email sent to me by Braybrooks entitled "People With Issues"