I have a brain, honestly.

My leg still hurts, but physio tomorrow. Hopefully the guy can speak English (I'm 110% sure he will be able to as everyone can over here, it's so annoying) as I might have to come up with my best Swedish translation 'jag har ont i mitt knä'. Think he will laugh and think I'm truelly retarded.

Speaking of which, I think the people living in our area do believe I'm a bit special. You have to understand that they, on appearance only, think I'm Swedish and not say, English, as I'm far too skinny and non-chav like.

This gets me in trouble a lot, no not because I've done something wrong per se, but more that normally when someone speaks to you and asks you questions, you formulate a nice response that shows intelligence and insight into your life. Well I'm fine up to a point, but when people start joking or talking about how much fat is in our plumbing, my language skills disappear faster than Usain Bolt.

This leads me to replying like a complete moron with a hideous 'yes' or 'no' or even a muttering of some weird sound (this is actually part of regular conversation in Sweden). When I get that weird look after I know I've said something very wrong......so you see, people really do think I'm special.

It doesn't help that everyone here is 90, which begs the question as to why is a young 20 something male living here- there must be something wrong with him......

So ironically it's like living a double life. I'm studying for the highest degree possible, in molecular immunology yet I'm speaking Swedish at a solid 3 year old level.

It really does bring you back to reality (well I didn't stray too far to start with actually).

On a slightly non-retarded note, it's not the song I wanted to show but it aint half bad (I told you I am clever...), check out the brains behind 'Something Corporate', a side project called 'Jack's Mannequin':

Stockholm half marathon

Well I'm paying for my over-confidence.....well yes and no, some partial truth to that. You see I'm sitting here with hurrendous knee pain (only when I bend it, so that's fine!!?!), due to my old mans DNA, yup cheers for that right leg.

I'm seeing the physio next Thursday, so have a week left of my peg-legged pirate impression.

The story is that to be a good runner, or good at anything for that matter, you must practise exactly what skill or sport you wish to improve in. Meaning, to be a better runner you must run.

Well I don't want to be a better runner so I didn't run. However, as my body is no spring chicken anymore, I made the fatal error of running the half marathon with literally no practice of running yet thinking I could do it in 1 hr 45.

Well I didn't manage the 1 hr 45, I did it in 1 hr 40 mins 56 secs : ) But as my body was not ready for it, I now can't walk properly. No it isn't muscular as such, more a mechanical defect- my bowed right leg, my high arches and my 2 cm extra length all have contributed to wait for it.....self diagnosis here, ITBS or iliotibial band syndrome (look it up).

All in all it hurts like buggery. Was it worth it? Erm....in a word, no.

I'm now out of the first squash league match in a week (I'm in Stockholm squash clubs 1st team in division 1 : ) ) as well as a competition this weekend. I can't walk our dog properly and it takes me friggin ages to get anywhere!!

So hopefully with some stretches, rehab ideas, may be a new knee....I could be on the beautiful road to recovery soon.

Next years goal is under 1 hr 40, providing I can run again. Johanna promised me if I could beat her by 30 mins she would pay for a trip to NY for me. Well I gave it a go, but Johanna was too quick and ran a very impressive 1 hr 56 min 59 secs so a mere 16 mins quicker : (

My old man did a great job too......of looking after the dog. No, but seriously was awesome to help us out. He will run it next year, so will my sister.....she just doesn't know it yet.

p.s. The pope is officially a cock. Despite touching up kids, now the freak thinks athiests are Nazi's.......Honestly, get the kiddy fiddling paedo out of the country back to molesting the masses all over the World. So apparently I'm Hitler......

What do you call a gay dinosaur?

A mega-saur-ass.

I couldn't think of a title or something to really write about, so apologies for that 'joke'. A quick update on Charlie bear, he's almost 20 weeks/5 months, (well tomorrow actually) and now weighs 20.2 kg. He's lost/gained about 4-5 adult teeth and his fur is shedding, so getting old, haha.

We've given him a new toy, no not a bone, not a dead animal etc.....but a racketball ball (sounds strange saying ball twice in the same sentence). It's perfect, well almost. It's small, soft, chewy, perfect to fit in his mouth. Two things which aren't so great are the dribble lines left as the ball roles away. Plus he must be the laziest puppy/dog ever- as soon as he kicks/roles the ball away, he just stares at it, expecting it to magically come back or looks at us expecting us to magically throw it back. What a dog. To give you some idea what raging, savage beast we have to live with, check out this picture:

Such a wild dog......

The writer has left the building

Not that I was very good at this writing thing, but recently I've just kind of forgotten about the blog stuff. I want to write something I am in the mood for discussing etc. At the moment I'm not 'feeling' it.

I'm just sitting here, watching my little bear eat his toys, in 25 degree heat at 9.30 pm, listening to 'Once in a Lifetime' by Talking Heads......all about not coping with what you have......no don't worry, I'm not going to be the cynic, I'm not depressed, I'm not in a bad mood....just a good tune actually.

I'm Johannaless (yes that's a real word) for those who don't know. Kind of funny actually, as she's in England, you know, chaving it up.....ok, not really, but she really is over there.

Like most of the people, I watched the World Cup final, but was disappointed about how crap it was. Unlike the Holland we know, they resorted to a kind of 'kick the shit out of the other team' mentality. I've never seen such an awesome karate kid drop kick on a football pitch:

The funny thing was Mr. De Jong only got booked for it! Haha, classic. Ok, the real one, as inspired from Jean Claude Van Damme:

Anyways, all joking aside, the Netherlands were dirty, Spain were crap until the end, but ultimately deserved to win the match and the whole competition, so fair play really. Think the Dutch need to go back to what they do best.......no not build windmills, get stoned and watch tulips grow.....play some nice attacking football.

Ok, football talk over. Well, one more thing- I don't know if any one else agrees with me, but I think this World Cup was incredibly dull. I'm not a huge football fan anyway, but seriously, a very boring event, nice to see this 'entertaining' sport is truelly, well.....tedious. I'd rather watch paint dry is kind of unfair on the paint.

Rambling continuing- we've had some outrageously awesome weather over here (yes, I'm English so have to talk about this interesting topic). It's been 26-30 degrees for a good few weeks, so much so these people who think Sweden is full of igloos in summer, are truelly going to eat their own words. When you sweat and you are not even moving, you know it's hot. And no, I'm not obese or American (same thing?!) and no I'm not wearing a coat or anything, it is genuinly tropical. So unlike in England where they have hose pipe bans, haha, living in the third World, and have 'weather warnings' for the heat, all other countries including this one, just get on with it.

So I await the return of my lady, all drugged up on Starbucks coffee, full of English cheer, beer and kebabs.....ok, I'm talking shite now, but I'm praying she doesn't come back with any tattoos, shaved heads, football shirts or better yet her jubblies hanging out, her ass cheeks spread out and her naval hitting me in the face....ok, I really will shut up now.

Seriously, can't wait to see my Swede, it's not been that long, but it's nice to go to sleep with a beautiful young lady instead of furry, bear like monster......or may be they are one in the same?! And no, Charlie doesn't sleep with me, for one he is too big to fit in the bed, ok, seriously I'm not one of these animal freaks who sleeps with their pets. It's bad enough if Johanna hasn't shaved her legs for a week, but a whole furry dog.....come on.

What is slightly annoying is that we don't need alarms to wake us up anymore. Just a paw slap in the face and a lick does the job nicely. Then to rub salt in the wounds, you get up and the little bugger goes back to sleep again. He's good at playing the game.....

So 18 weeks old now and at least 18 kg (haven't weighed him this week), but probably closer to 19 kg. It sounds like I'm talking about my kid (no, don't have any of them by the way), but what can I say. He is my dog, he is a pet, a damn cute one at that. Sometimes we can learn a lot from our pets. I mean their lifestyle is as Homer Simpson-esque as it can be. You eat, sleep, eat, sleep crap.....in no particular order. You run around, the World is one big toilet (ok, men have that one covered already), work is getting petted, fed and best of all someone picks your shit up after you. What a life.

Seriouly what I mean was animals, especially dogs, live in the now. They don't predict the future, they don't anticipate what's coming next, they react to what's happening now. Life wouldn't be so scary if we didn't plan for the worst, be fearful of the unknown. People are happy to see them, well minus say a pitbull biting your face off (no I know not all pitbulls are like that, just stereotyping for you), always in a good mood......yadda yadda yadda.

It's tough competing for Johanna's love with Charlie, I mean he's younger than me, is charming, is annoyingly cute, is softer to touch (sounds a little weird?!) etc. But there's one comfort that sits nicely with me- (I'm watching Boogie Nights, so wait for it......) I am and will always be Dirk Diggler in comparison to my four-legged friend.

p.s. I'm not really competing with my pet for Johanna's heart......haha. No honestly........

England- yes, says it all!

Well I've been busy. I haven't disappeared altogether! Can't be arsed really to yack about what I've been doing, but just wanted to comment on the England World cup disaster.

It's not surprising they lost. They are crap.

May be Germany have done England/the Premiership some good. May be things might change now. Why is the English league full of foreigners? It's not the answer at all, look at Argentina as a prime example. Their domestic league isn't great but national team is very good. This pattern is actually more common than you think.

Well more importantly in my eyes is the youth systems, English clubs are very bad at producing any talent. All the good national team youth systems have players who probably never kicked a full size ball, over head height, with more than 2 touches up until they were 15. English football doesn't promote talent or passion- no individual skill. Why is it that almost every team has at least one incredibly skillfull player. Where is Englands?!

Footballers in England (at least) are genuinly retarded- they are too stupid to win. Football is blissfully simple, yet no-one in the England team has a brain to create space to have any concept of forward thinking.

They are overpaid, passionless players who see it as a right to be in the team. They lack the basic skills/ability to play at International level- just watch any of their World cup games.

English football needs an overhaul- there are no English players in the team playing in other European leagues, why? Well because the players can't cope with that style- attacking, flair football. Why do footballers get paid to play for their country? Think the motivation to play football has long since been lost against the desire for money.

When you can't do the simple things properly, there is no hope. No passion, no talent, no nothing. The best idea ever in football is to have performance based pay. At a normal job you get sacked for doing a crap job, so why do you get paid millions to be useless in football?

The chumps should owe money if they lose or play badly. I'm just watching the Argentina match and it wouldn't have mattered if we'd have beaten Germany- we would have been destroyed by this team.

Despite Maradona being a royal prick, at least he has passion (or drugs), which he clearly feeds to his players. They look like they want to be there!

One consolation for England is that it can only get better. An unfortunate dis-allowed goal may have cost them, but if you don't do the business you don't deserve to win. So despite this, they still let in 4 goals. Why oh why do they not use replays? This would cut the diving, the uncertainty, the indecision. Job done, but no, they continue to ignore this easy answer to improve the game.

This is definitely another day, where I'm glad not to be in England, the next thing is to change my nationality. Erm problem there is that if its based on football- and thank f**k it's not, as Sweden are just as bad (the difference being they have 6 times less people to choose from and don't claim to be good at football- their top league has attendences of as low as a few hundred people for smaller teams, getting paid around 20 k a year), I would have to marry a German, haha. Ok, not going to happen.

Ironically, we've just been to a wedding- on Öland, a lovely little island just off the south eastish coast. So that's inspiration to get married.........erm........If it means I can become Swedish, then may be I might just do it.......at least I don't have to get nervous wondering if the football team will win or lose in the World cup..........

Plan Three

Not that new, but pretty unheard of at the moment. A decent Swedish band, who is not frigging ABBA or Roxette.

We've seen them live already, supporting 3 Doors Down. They are along the lines of Dead by April etc, so their newest release off their debut album Screaming Our Sins, is the song 'Brush it off'.

No official video, so I picked the least gayest video off the tube of the U.

Skillet

Well despite the connotation of being a Christian rock band (isn't that ironic/blasphemous or something), the band Skillet aren't half bad.

The lyrics aren't overly preachy, you know God is great and all that crap. Being an Atheist myself (well there is a God actually and he's Norwegian, 36 and goes by the name of Terje Håkonsen) you can adapt these lyrics to someone you like/love instead of this imaginery floating being in the sky somewhere (what 'The invention of lying' for some insight into that!!).

Anyway, a song from a few years back, yes it's pretty generic rock, but still easy to listen to. Without further ado here is Skillet with Re-birthing: