I got a letter the other day.
To say the least it was the kind of letter everyone wants. There are squares and triangles, earth and sky, flesh and blood.
I snapped a picture but I really can’t tell you much more about it because I would assume these people have ways of dealing with people who rat them out.
Track them down.
Take care of ‘em good.
Medieval style.
Dear friends,
A couple of months before Elin and I got married we decided to lose some weight. Said and done, I lost about 5 kgs (11 lbs) and Elin did a good job too.
After that it has all been downhill and I have since become a lard ass. So extreme circumstances call for extreme methods. And extreme over weight call for The Pig Race!
Starting today I am a pig racing towards health. I will blog about eating habits, the aerobics class, ten-beers-or-not-ten-beers, my weight, my waist-line and outdoors activities such as hiking, running and walking to the mail box.
Perhaps a few of you will even be inspired to grab yourself by the waist-line and start hunting that hog.
Goal:
a) To lose 15 kgs (33 lbs) before my birthday on 1 July.
b) To have 90% of my t-shirts fit instead of 10%
Terms:
a) I will bring updates at least once every week.
b) All my friends are allowed to bully/mock me here on the blog.
c) You may also cheer on if you feel like it.
Weight: 88,2 kg (194,3 lbs)
Waist: 102 cm (40,8″)
BMI: 26,1 (“over weight”)
Comment: “It feels good to sit after walking up the stairs.”
With those numbers the Race is on!
And the joke is on me.
Weight: 86,4 kg (190,5 lbs)
Waist: 100 cm (29,4″)
BMI: 25 (still ”over weight”)
The Pig on “working out”: No doubt about it, after almost one full week I’m off to a slow start. I have lost almost 2 kgs (4,4 lbs) though just by walking a lot. (Got a flat tire on the bicycle on my way to a bar actually – I intend to fix the tire but more than so I need to exercise properly.
The Pig on “food”: Since work started again after the holidays I do watch what I eat. Lots of salads, some low calorie shakes, cooking without too much oil etc. This will give heavy effect soon.
The Pig on “friends”: Well, the mocking is off to a good start. The lot of you took the chance at sucker punching. Good for me coz I need the daily fisting. Also, I must say that I have inspired some. No less than three friends have signed up to join in or compete with me but before all that I’m off to work.
If you can’t be good, be bad, baby!
Stats: Day 12 Weight: 84,6 kg (186,5 lbs)
Waist: 99 cm (38,9″)
BMI: 25 (still ”over weight”)
My only exercise so far has been walking which is a shame. To my defense I can say that I have a bad cold and that I have been walking an aweful lot. So the 3,6 kgs (7,9 lbs) I have lost so far is an effect of better eating routines.
I eat stuff like the above and it’s not fair but it’s healthy. I also make sure I eat something every 2-3 hours. Fat-free stuff, no candy, no soda, no nothing.
The good old bad habits. While cleaning out a room we are renovating I found a picture of me from years and years ago. Though partially staged it says something about which lifestyle lead to this pig form of mine.
Now I’m walking out to do some work.
Might as well lose some weight while at it.
Weight: 83,2 kg (183,4 lbs)
Waist: 97 cm (38,2″)
BMI: 24,6 (”normal weight”)
This is going all to well. Piece of cake! Without the cake. It’s been easy: I can’t have the cake and I can’t eat it. Period. I’m down 5 kgs (11 lbs). It’s almost like I’m losing weight too fast! I’ll end upp looking like that skin-stealin’ alien from Men In Black.
I have inspired quite a few people allready: One friend has written down “life rules” and Sandor is bloggingabout the very same things as me. He was even in local paper about it two days ago. Then there is Jo. He was joking when he said: “I should join the pig race”.
Two seconds later he was drafted.
Stats: Day 30Weight: 82,2 kg (181,2 lbs)
Waist: 97 cm (38,2″)
BMI: 24,3 (”normal weight”)
Down by 6 kgs (13,2 lbs). Sandor has his own diet blog called Fat Donation and he’s raving about losing weight through just eating fat; kind of what they call Atkin’s Diet. I’ve been toying with it a bit and I haven’t gained anything at least.
Me and Elin are considering going to Israel together some time this year. I was there almost three years ago. Don’t know if going there made me thin but the above show’s evidence of my not-quite-so-piggy self.
We are doing some work on our apartment. A lot of bang bang actually. Smashing a wall and raising another. When all is said and done we will have an extra guest room, which means that we will have two proper guest rooms which is why we moved to this place in the first place from the old place.
While waiting for pictures of the new place we might as well show you the old place which was an incredible place to live. And cheap, like the new place.
On saturday morning I was very sad to learn that good friend, former employer and village entrepreneur Hans Olsson passed away. I don’t really know the hows and whys but I do know that Hans will be dearly missed in my home town of Veddige.
Hans and his wife Lena were running the Esso gas station in Veddige where I got my first job. We spent countless hours together serving customers and cars, talking ice hockey and joking around.
Many a good thing can be said about Hans, but one thing stands out: He was a man of his word. If he promised you something then he would walk through hellfire to deliver. Also, he was probably the biggest supporter of our metal cover band Cruel Covers. In january of 2005 a storm hit the west coast of Sweden in the middle of the night blacking out the whole village of Veddige. Me and Sandor were not late in heading out there. We ended up at the gas station were Hans and Lena were looking after things, waiting for the electricity to return.
Sandor took a picture. We had a couple of laughs and then returned out into the cold and found our way home were we lit some candles. A mighty fine memory I will say.
Good friend Martin “Compadre” Thomander called me up last night to let me know that before last nights’ game the Veddige Vipers held a silent minute for the late Hans Olsson. Hats off for that. Hans was always a through-the-ice-and-snow supporter of the local ice hockey team. The Vipers then kicked the crap out of Hovås Hockey winning 4-1.
So, on this day we raise our glasses high for Esso-Hans who is probably allready shifting gears in the Formula 1 race across the high plains of heaven. Salute!
Hey deadheads,
If it used to be every day, it is more twice a year now. Blogging that is. Not lots of it. While I don’t wake up from police raids (like in Chicago) or from crazy middle easterners (Israel) stuff still happens. And I’ve travelled more since so, I just suck at writing about it. Thought I would just throw some things out there and try to write more frequent after that. Ready roosters?
1) Me and Elin celebrated six months of being married this monday.
2) I went to see Aimee Mann live in Stockholm about two weeks ago.
3) I visited Pilgrim Bestiarius of black metal band Crimson Moonlight about six weeks back – took a lot of pictures and conducted an interview that was published over four pages in Swedish newspaper Dagen. A simliar article will be published in HM Magazine which is great fun.
4) I’m watching the Vancouver Canucks play the New York Rangers right now. NYR just reduced to 1-4. It’s a re-run though from last night. The game started at 2 in the morning. The Canucks are crushing!
5) Held a economy seminare at the local University.
6) Me and Elin got identical marriage tattoos! Really sweet ones. Butterflies with skulls for bodies.
7) I started a new part-time job today. It’s for the municipality and a great job I think. I’m the controller for this collaboration between five different municipalities trying to help some hundred youngsters who’ve had a hard time getting jobs.
8) I bought a season ticket for the Örebro Vipers‘ home games. Haven’t missed a game so far. We’re aiming for advancement to the second highest division this year. Go Vipers!
9) We hosted a Halloween party… on Halloween and we had a blast. About 25 people showed up. Elin was dressed up like a dead nun (much like Freddy Kruger’s mom Amanda from A Nightmare on Elm Street). I was a skinhead. Others showed up as Napoleon Dynamite, the Devil and a Bee.
Lot of stories for you. Not enough to make up for lost time, but a good effort. I could leave you with a top three too I guess;
- Marillion “Happiness is the Road” (2008)
- Robert Earl Keen “Marfa after Dark” (2008)
- Novembre “Materia” (2006)
That’s all kids. If you are gonna chew dirt, don’t swallow.
/ Rattlehead
There’s a swedish saying would translate “cross in the ceiling”! Whenever something unexpected occurs this saying applies. Like me updating this blog. There’s also a saying that goes “I sense owls in the swamp”. That one however is a bit harder to apply today. So far, anyways. Today is saturday and I’m paralyzed in front of the computer. I have some work to do that I should really get going with since Elin is at work till three but I have a hard time “getting the thumb out of the ass” (another swedish expression, actually). So, it’s been ages since I last wrote but I think we’ve been up to the same dirty things since last (christmas, new years etc). This is the chinese year of the rat by the way. And don’t I feel like a one?
We went to the wedding of one of Elin’s friends. Basically I knew no one and ended up eating and drinking too much. It’s always great when you get home realising that you’ve been rotating 7-8 answers all evening: “Yes”, “No”, “—” (accompanied by “the look”), “Mostly Motörhead”, “I only dance to german-spanish gay electronica” and “Yes, my glass is always half-empty, so by all means, fill it up sweet-cheeks”.
Have been quite a bad reader lately. Elin gave me Damien Echols’ autobiography “Almost Home – My Life Story Vol. 1″ for christmas. That was a good, but sad, read. In case you don’t follow the demise of The West Memphis Three, it’s the disturbing story of three kids who got accused/convicted for the murder of three eight year-olds. It’s a tale of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I’ve been supporting the WM3 for a long time. Sadly, this whole thing feels disturbingly close to home to most people who give it some time. Anyways, I also got Biff Byford’s autobiography. The of Saxon y’know. It was a fun a read, lots of good stories. I only wish that he was as good a storyteller as Mr. Echols. The last book I read was Stephen King’s hard case crime novel “The Colorado Kid”. A cool one, though lacking a lot of the caracteristics of the more typical King novels.
I’ve done quite a lot writing the last couple of months. One kinda cool article was about the release party for Mammuth’s new album “The Cardiac Defect”. I got this idea that the photo shoot should have a heart-theme (cardiac, get it?). So I found a pigs-heart and a bucket of ox blood. Well, it turned out the singer of Mammuth was a vegetarian. “Big deal”, I said. “So am I!” But he didn’t want to do it so I had to make fake blood out of syrap and some other stuff. The heart I carved from a sweet-potatoe.
I have been up to quite some mischief since last, I must say. Some costed more than others. Bare with me and I’ll bring you up to date.
First off. The most wonderful thing has happened. For the first time ever (and last, mind you!) I got engaged! That was ten days ago and Elin was the victim of course. We decided to do it on the very spot – close to the castle in Stockholm – where we met the first time about 15 months ago. After that we went to a fancy restaurant up in the air. So yes, now I am one happy bloke.
About three weeks back I went downtown (Stockholm) to catch up with Tim Lambesis of As I Lay Dying. Really nice guy. We sat down for a good hour talking about the band, the album, the tour and the faith.
After that I did a photo shoot with the band, went home for dinner and then took Elin with me to the show. Some other bands played (Himsa, Darkest Hour and Maroon) I think but I saw nothing of them.
The article I wrote about As I Lay Dying was published in the newspaper Dagen last week. It came out allright but as always you think you could’ve done better. About the band, well metalcore isn’t really my thing but lately the band has moved a bit closer to a thrash sound which makes them way more interesting for me. And well, their show was energetic enough.
So what was the whole car crash thing about you wonder? Well, I went to London (via Belgium) with the guys form Animasola for some UK shows to promote the band. It was a really fun eight day trip but during one show in London some dopeheads smashed a car window on the car I borrowed from Jens. Then they took all our clothes. That was in the middle of the night. Needless to say the experience sucked pretty bad. I’ll write more about that and our stay in a London anarchist house the next time. Maybe some of the guys have pictures (though I douit since the on digitial camera got stolen).