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Last weekend I sold my Philicorda to a friend. I drove it to Hoeve Weltevreden, where the Dutch Youth Association for Astrononomy (JWG) was at that moment organising a camp for kids. It was great to be in Holland and to spend the evening in Het Brabantsche Land. Me and some friends spent a few hours ridding the Philicorda of dust, admiring its design and tubes, and played some awesome tunes on it, much to the joy and amusement of all the people who were trying to watch Back to the Future in the room next door. By the way, if anyone possesses a Philicorda service manual, model AG7500, please contact me. We were unable to find one on the internet, which must mean it doesn’t exist.

Last weekend some friends of mine from Holland visited me in Stockholm. Say yaay for RyanAir. We had an awesome time, and it was great to see them. We enjoyed the Swedish nightlife and saw a lot of the city, particularly the places where they served beer and sunshine.

The Soap Bar was nice for a change. I’d warned my friends that this was gonna be a fine example of Stockholms poshy nightclubs, but I was wrong, people were nice and drinks were served with a smile.

This was also the first time I ever sat in a limo. Well alright it was a Volvo limo, but hey we’re in Sweden, what do you expect. Hilarious, of course. The limo driver took us to a Japanese restaurant where we met up with some friends and got to grill our own food. The driver said it had five stars, but we weren’t sure what that meant, exactly…

Also met up with some new people at a poker tournament, thanks David, it was a nice evening! I’ve put some pictures of the weekend online, here they are.

Just watched Taking Chance. Possibly the simplest plotline ever: marine escorts dead guy. Yet it’s a pretty impressive movie. Nice camera work, soundtrack, I don’t know. With Kevin Bacon, who hardly has any lines at all. And it must be good because it says so on the internet.

The apartment complex across the street where I live in Holland has been squatted for a couple of months. Unfortunately the guys were setting an example of how not to do this. Trashing the place, painting the walls and playing loud music until 10 PM. It was only a matter of time before the police would come and chase them out of there. Too bad, because their point was a valid one. Too many old buildings in Holland could easily be renovated; instead they are torn down by big real estate companies who put up new buildings which will cost buyers and tennants twice the price…

After a time of stress, anxiety and some doubt there is now officially no way back. This morning, along with tons of respected and much appreciated colleagues, I received notification from my current employer that my services are no longer required. Kind of saw that one coming, so I’ve made arrangements elsewhere. Soon I will officially start my new job in Sweden. After living in the same appartment for almost 11 years I will now cancel it and move my stuff up north, where a new life (and love) is awaiting me. Now let’s hope the economy lasts over there…

Just spent the most awesome day on a big cruise ship with a bunch of friends. The trip was called the Sweden Rock Cruise. It was a strange experience, the whole Love Boat setting type of thing, but crowded with tattoo’ed and pierced rockers In its surrealism it wasn’t that different from some of the raves I’ve seen in Holland. There was a rock stage on the ship where we saw performances by lots of cool Swedish bands such as Dream Evil, Gravedigger and Entombed. We missed out on Witchcraft cause we were doing a pub quiz. A really relaxing experience in a time of anxiety about job and future.

Yesterday morning, me and Erik the Awful woke up and started singing the lines to the brilliant Dream Evil song “Heavy Metal in the Night”. Monsters are dying by axes. That’s right. On our way to the buffet we ran into Dream Evil’s bass player, Pete Pain, who sang along with us and then we had breakfast with him. What a nice dude. See the pictures on Flickr.