Cause All My Jewels Be Rocky Like Sylvester Stallone

This and that:

+WE WON A GAME! As the saying goes, 16th time's the charm.

+Sweden continues to surprise me. DJ GymMat was holding it down at our away game the weekend before last. Ya betta believe regular warmup music will never be the same after this:

+Saw a guy driving a convertible through town last week. Top down, wind blowing through his... tightly woven knit hat...? Screw it, tuque. Or beanie. Sorry but I write for the Canadian in me. Nothing calls for a hypothermia-inducing drive like the crisp February air.
Speaking of tuques, one of my favourite stories of all time concerns them. Back when she was in high school, my older sister Luisa and her friend Matt are doing a good deed shoveling my Granny's (aka our next-door-neighbor) walk. Halfway through, GranDog, as she's affectionately known in some circles, pokes her head out the front door and yells, "you kids want a toque?" To which Matt looks at my sister, wide eyed, and half-whispers, "your Granny deals!?!"
Knowledge dropped: Yes you can spell it tuque or toque, no you cannot say it both ways. Sorry Gran.

+Speaking of high school (how's that for another successful segway?) we go to the local high school for lunch every day. It's free so don't judge. I expected it to be more of the same gnarly mystery meat type situation taking place in N. American schools. Not so. I feel like I'm eating in some posh Scandinavian cafe on the daily. A cafe filled with 17 year olds but that's beside the point. I get this vibe because of the wall of windows, candelabra with real candles over the salad bar, and oh I don't know, a piano in the middle of the room. The day I see any of that in any high school caf back home is the day pigs fly.

+Another weird sighting about town: my team Canada teammate was here a couple weeks ago for a game with her Swedish team and told me that as they rolled up to the gym she saw a lamb, be-sweatered and on a leash out for a lazy afternoon ramble through Svedala. Any and every time I've been outside since then I've kept my eyes PEELED but still no sign of the woolly beast. I'm pretty disappointed.
On a side note, who is putting knitwear on a lamb? It has its own sweater. It IS its own sweater! Its like dressing the lamb in one of its cousins' haircuts. Disgusting and pathetic.

Maybe I'm Not Big Cause I Don't Blog or Twitter... Dog, I'm Bitter

I know I'm supposed to bemoan the fact that the world is becoming Americanized at an alarming rate and on a typical Friday night over wings and sushi, I do.
But I also got a confession to make: there are times when I embrace it. I'm not even American so I don't really know what that says. But sometimes it's nice. Real nice.

Sweden is a prime example. I've only been here a little over a month but there's no question it's the most Americanized of anywhere I've been to/lived in Europe so far (with the exception of the UK which doesn't really count anyway). And sometimes I love it.
By the way, before anyone gets their panties in a twist - I'm allowed to say this without being the first to blow their cover; apparently Sweden's America-envy is already recognized as kind of a sore spot in some circles. Anyways. A couple examples:

+ NFL regular season games are on live TV. And the highlights on regular sports shows, sandwiched between handball and hockey news. It's bizarre. Yes, games may be on at like 11 PM but it's still truly mind blowing. Worlds collide on regular everyman's cable TV on a weekly basis. The best part is the half-time talking heads are Swedish cats who, according to my sources, actually sort of maybe know what they're talkin about:

All I know is it will be a cold day in hell before you see an NFL commentator on NBC wearing a cardigan...

+ 2Pac on Swedish radio. I vividly remember chilling in my teammate's car, getting my skull blown off its shoulders by the earthquaking impact of classic 90s hiphop being broadcast through channels normally reserved solely for dance/trance/house/techno/eurodance/Katy Perry. 


+ MLB caps aplenty. Worn on Swedish heads. I've never seen anybody in Europe wearing a Sox/Cardinals/Tigers/whoever hat unless they are a) foreign or b) wait, nope. Just a).
For whatever reason I find this Swedish hat observation vaguely comforting... I don't know why. Maybe it's the fact that it proves it's not just an American phenomenon - there are idiots worldwide willing to wear 59Fifty hats with the sticker still on the brim.

+ A good 75% of TV is American and Swedes claim the reason their English is so good is because it's all only subtitled in Swedish instead of dubbed like elsewhere in Europe. Whatever the reason, it means I can watch anything from CSI to Inside the Actor's Studio from the comfort of my living room couch. The fact that I've never actually I've never seen either of those on here but that's beside the point.

+ This is a stretch but since they were originally popularized by an American MC, I say it counts. Plus it's hilarious. Excuse the crap picture quality but I had to capture these incognito on my phone at the gym... it does them no justice but HAMMER PANTS LIVE!