Treading Water

It was time for me to host another DJ session at the Kville Biljard last Saturday (27th), running from 21:00 through to closing time at 01:00 in the morning. It was a bit weird this time, though. Firstly, it was a different crowd. When I last played there, we had people of all ages in; so I was able to do a great mix of stuff right from the 1970s up to present time. This time, however, it was mainly people with an oldest age of mid-twenties. Therefore I had to resort to "Plan B". This involves me screwing up my "fall-back playlist" and making everything up, mainly present-day stuff which -- in my ever so humble opinion -- doesn't work in a biljard. They're repetitive and boring - great for a dance hall but not for people playing pool.

The aforementioned "fall-back playlist" is just a piece of paper with some "classics" on it, so if my brain has a "dunno what to play" moment, I can just play something from the paper. Not so this time!

The second problem was that I'm suffering from DMF at the moment. If you don't know what that is, it's "Deadly Man Flu", which is the male version of the common cold. Most men collapse into a gibbering wreck when they catch it and become convinced that they're about to die. Actually, I usually try and ignore it. This is actually too far in the other extreme, because if you just try and work through it, it will actually get worse. Anyway, I'm taking it easy now, but having to work through it while DJing is actually very weird; I was having an "out of body" experience for most of the time. But, I got through it, so no worries.

I treated myself to a Bolognese last night, to help me through my DMF (bolognese actually being a "ragu" as the Italians would call it). I cheat by using a jar of Dolmio, but then I add my own onion, red pepper and garlic. I also added chilli to the whole thing, making it a sort of Chili Ragu Con Carne or something! But I made it nice and hot to clear my airwaves. It did the trick a little too well though. I like my food hot (spice-wise), and I overdid it slightly. My nose was certainly running afterwards; but unfortunately something else was running too . Cue appropriate "Ring of Fire" song by Johnny Cash! The rest of the night saw me desparately trying to avoid sneezing!

I'll be doing my usual SLAY Radio show tomorrow evening, even if the cold hasn't gone away. I'm a consummate professional y'know! (read: Idiot.)

Snö, w00t!

It finally happened on Saturday - we had snow in Gothenbug! Yay! I say "yay" because we actually need it here. Instead of snowing, it's been raining a lot since winter crept in; because of this, there have been lots of floods where rivers have been bursting their banks. Snow is the lesser of the two evils.

Plus, snow has a psychological side, too, as Martin (one of the bar staff at Kville Biljard) reminded me: winter is always a dismal month, and when it's dull and wet, it compounds the miserable feeling that everyone has. When there's snow on the ground, however, it brightens the evenings up and lifts peoples' spirits.

Unfortunately, it only lasted about five hours. Snow turned to hail which turned to rain, and melted all the snow again. But today (Monday), it's seriously trying to snow again - the flakes are very small, there's not many of them and they're fluttering down very slowly, but it's trying at least. Let's hope it settles soon. Or, let's just skip winter and get to Spring

The ADSL saga continues, but in a positive way - sort of! I've finally got my phone line! Unfortunately I had to wait while the ADSL department's database "synched up" with the telephone department, so that was a week's worth of thumb-twiddling. Then I finally placed my order for ADSL last Thursday. Now, thanks to their stupid automated system (and the fact that they don't want to help me out, even after all the problem's I've had), I now have to wait "4-6 weeks" before I get the connection. Poo! But at least it's on it's way, I suppose.

Ups and Downs

t's been exactly a month since I last wrote an entry, such is my "habit" of writing a blog! What's been happening? Well, instead of trying to do it chronologically, I'll just do it by topic.

The Christmas period has come and gone, and plans changed at the last minute for various reasons. Instead of me spending Christmas in England and Linda spending it with her maternal grandparents in Norway, we decided to have a quiet Christmas together. So, I went over to England a week early instead. But because of having to see lots of family, I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to, so Linda and I will be going over to England around March time. But it was all good. I got to see my grandmother who is now 90 years old, bless her. And Linda and I had a lovely time. For New Year, we were in Gothenburg with some friends. It was quiet and grown up - well, until we drank a lot of beer, champagne, G&T and wine!

The Tele2 story continues, but has taken a significant step forward - earlier today, in fact. An engineer came round and fixed the line. There was a fault (which had actually started going wrong when Linda had the flat), and because it's owned by Telia, Tele2 were waiting for them (Telia are the BT of Sweden - I rest my case). BUT, now I have a working telephone line! Tomorrow Tele2 should be phoning me about the ADSL - but I can see myself having to phone them. After all, the engineer was supposed to phone me last Friday to confirm the time of the appointment, but didn't. He phoned me at 9:00 this morning saying he was outside my door. "That's a shame," I said, "I'm in Trollhättan. You were supposed to phone me on Friday," I added, pointedly.

"Oh." said the engineer. "When will you be back?"

"Two o'clock," I said.

"Oh. I'll come then."

"Do that," I said. Thankfully he kept his promise and fixed the line within 20 minutes.

Expanding on that note, I was in Trollhättan this weekend. I was supposed to be in Gothenburg doing a DJ set at the biljard, but Linda had a bit of a fever so I cancelled and went over there. She could have survived without me, really, but several things happened to me since the new year, including something that happened on Saturday morning. It just made it easier for me to run off.

There is a preamble I wanted to add to this blog, but for legal reasons, I'll keep it out for now.

On Saturday morning at 7:30am, I was woken up by some bloke visiting my next door neighbour, and being none-too-quiet about it. Next door neighbour had already left at around 5am (I know because I heard the noisy bastard). After a couple of minutes of banging on the door, he walked off. However, after about 10 minutes, I was dropping off to sleep, and was suddenly woken up again by a few big bangs and clattering. Then the bloke came storming up the stairs again with one or two of his friends, banged on the door again, shouting through his letterbox. Then banging MY door and shouting through MY letterbox again to see if he was here. After another 5 or so minutes of that, they went downstairs again, shouting loudly in frustration.

When I went downstairs later in the day, I found that the banging was that they had tipped all the bins over, and smashed the window to the door that served our stairwell. That was it for me. After consultation with Linda, we phoned the landlord up and told him that said neighbour has to go. At which point I also went to Trollhättan to get away from it all and have a quiet weekend with Linda.

When I came back today, it's all very quiet in the neighbour's place. I'm assuming he's laying low for a bit.

Anyway, that's the main points of my life over the past month. Let's see what happens next, eh?!