And now the air carrier round up for this trip...

SAS was by far the best airline this trip. The experience on the plane seemed more civilized, the seats were better, more legs room too. I was really disappointed going back seeing the Lufthansa plane rolling in and not a SAS plane. Christ you even got lox on a fresh baguette as the meal. How often do you get a baguette instead of a dry Safeway dinner roll on an Air Canada? How often do you get anything that seems fresh on Air Canada?

Luftahansa I'll say was okay. The seats were pretty well worn but lots of leg room. The staff was actually really helpful considering how stressed a lot of us were on the plane about making connections. The thing about this flight that was kind of surreal was the stewards, in their pressed dark blue uniforms and clean shaven blond hair, looked totally like the stereotypical Luftwaft Hitler youth. Coupled with the heavy accent english on the intercom just added to the feel of being in a Simpsons scene. But really the staff was great considering the riot potential.

The best I can say about Air Canada is the usual adequate rating. The positive is that they got me to and from Frankfurt. The staff wasn't as surly as they've been known to be. And that's about it. The food was marginally edible. The planes looked like they're starting to fall apart. Going over to Frankfurt we were stuck on the tarmac for over an hour for repairs. It felt like there was a metal rod in the seat cutting into my back, lights flickered, TV screens went between BW and Colour. Oh did I mention the trapped in the bathroom bit? Other's have had worse horror stories from AC flights so taking that into consideration, they were a marginal means to an end.

Contrary to what I was told by Air Canada, my bag won't be delivered between 5 -10pm. It will arrive at the courier between 5-10 and will actually be delivered to me between 9pm-12:30am.

The final surprise for thursday. Finding cat poo under the bed sheets. Actually this is something I anticipated so before I left I put old sheets on bed. Not too concerned with it since I want to buy a new bed soon but just adds the final flourish to today's events.

There are owls in the moss. Somedays you just get that feeling that things aren't going to go smoothly.

Check in. Great, I'm in line to get the sexy swedish fluent-in-english checkin woman. She'll be able to tell me all the flight info, gates, and stuff and I'll understand completely. What's this? Apparently non-english speaking soon-to-retire swede guy decides to start taking tickets. doesn't really look like he knows what he's doing, can't tell me the info I want, and seems to check me in way too fast. Nothing serious but seems like a bad omen.

Through security: Great everything's leaving on time. About to exchange my Kronars to Euros for coffee in Frankfurt before bordering starts. What? Now flight is delayed an hour. And it's the only flight delayed. Not good but not serious - this happened last time and still made connecting flight without incident. Whoops they've now changed gates. whoops. Now we're bordering an hour late instead of taking off. Fantastic, plane is absolutely packed and I'm in the very last row of seats which could make for more delays just getting off plane. Whoops. now we're delayed landing in Frankfurt. This day is really starting to suck ass now everybody on the plane not just me could potentially miss their flights.

De-plane goes relatively quick. Everybody is now doing the Amazing Race dash to make connectors. Head for the passport Nazi in Frankfurt with old couple at passport window but no lineup. Suddenly the old fart decides it's a great idea to engage the passport officer in a little chit chat about his european vacation after getting his passport stamped. Now everyone is nearly at the point of screaming out, "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST YOU OLD FUCKER! GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY SO THE REST OF US CAN MAKE OUR FUCKING FLIGHTS!" He moves enough to get the line moving again. Of course he also leaves his entire lugage cart sideways in the gateway for us to climb over while he shuffles off to regale some other lucky soul with his heartwarming stories.

Run to gate with maybe 5 minutes to spare before gate closes. Flight now delayed because of flight traffic but not by too much. Baggage should have just made it too.

Finally on the way. German guy in seat next to me is kind of creepy looking - like some crazy scientist for SPECTRE in James Bond but that's okay. Go to use the washroom once we take off and true to Air Canada plane standards, end up being trapped in the washroom for about 15 minutes because the door is completely jammed shut. This trip is getting so comically crazy I'm laughing. Finally get out because other passengers noticed I was trapped and notify the staff. Staff manage to get the door open with a screw driver. One stewardess suggests that they close that bathroom. Of course they don't. So I watch other unwitting passengers get trapped the same way for a while. One steward finally takes the door out of the slider but in stead of an out of order sign on the door he just instructs people to "just keep it closed with your foot". Classy. I expect this door problem will be fixed maybe next month or so the way Air Canada operates.

On to collect bag when I'm paged to baggage counter. My bag didn't make it. It'll be on the same flight tomorrow and delivered between 5pm and 10pm sort of like waiting for the cable guy. On the positive side at least they notified me before I stood around waiting for an hour. Seems like the perfect way to end this flight.

Will i ever see my bag again? Let see it has my cellphone, favorite sunglasses, favorite world travelled trench coat. And all the stuff I bought except for my toque. I have visions of some luggage guy in Frankfurt wearing the top hat that was lost in R+J's luggage on a past trip, drinking my Skone out of my nice iittala glasses.

Kind of a non-action trip to europe by most people standards but a pretty good by mine. Been so long since I had a vacation, i didn't really unwind till today so now i need another 2 weeks to really vacation. Seemed to eat their food and lay around and be generally useless. Got to see the baby - i'll be feeding her lots of sugar to get her pinballing off walls for the parents when she's older. That will all be part of of the requirements of claiming this uncle's minimal inheritance. Along with overnight stay in haunted mansion. Got to see the LMV groupo before they head to Japan. Like all vacations, wish i had more time...

There are 7-11s here but think you'll find a Slurpee. You can be part of the solution if you sign the petition.

I'm drinking Julmust which my brother claims is like Dr. Pepper. I think he's been out of Canada too long.

I've developed an irrational desire to own this clock that i must control. Maybe I'll have to stop in here to sort this out.

TV in Sweden is kind of interesting to watch. The news presenters dress kind of casual which is a bit of a nice change from the stuffy outfits North American hosts wear. But it's so casual it looks odd that they're doing news in semi-street clothes with bad hair, bad beards, and little or no makeup. It also must suck to be someone trying to break into the TV talking head employment area here. Looks like there's little or no room for any newcomers since half the TV personalities seem to have to do triple duty doing the news, hosting a game show, and or a home reno show. So there can't be too many job openings that wouldn't already be filled by the news guy on his lunch hour.

Then there's the reality shows like Farm. It might make more sense if I spoke the language but it seems kind of pointless. There doesn't seem to be any kind of challenges or contests to provide any purpose for being on the farm - just a bunch of people laying around a farm occasionally arguing each other or doing laundry. Sometimes one of the hotties jumps into another hottie's bed. Which at first I thought might be providing the purpose of the show - an attempt to suggest some hot lesbian action to draw in the 12 - 24 male demograph. Except it usually goes something like: hottie has just finished doing laundry; argues with someone who was doing laundry somewhere else on the farm; then runs up stairs where the other woman is snoring in bed and doesn't want to be disturbed. I fear to watch yet can not turn away.

Then there's all the english filler TV. Like any show that was high in the ratings about 2 years ago but has since plummeted like West Wing is running. Alias is in it's first year run - you'd think having Lena Olin would get it here sooner. That and lots of reruns of Melrose which looks even more horribly wretched this time around. All this with Swedish subtitles.

Oh yeah the home reno shows. You think Hildi and the lot from Trading Places are bad. they have shows where the show design tips on how to turn a relatively ordinary room into full on Eurobad 70.

Maybe Swedes don't get as many running noses or something. They make it really challenging to find Kleenex in the store and it doesn't feel as soft.

Today i managed to buy shirts that I think are the wrong size because i was too lazy to ask what Kille meant. Couldn't find anything at H&M that I liked. Found the Daft Punk coffee table and one hell of a great clock at the ROOM store but don't think either would fit into the overhead compartment of a plane. The one store I really needed to go to today was closed. So far I've managed to act out the stupid tourist role pretty well too. So as retaliation I went on a spending binge of red toques and Swedish CDs with Nick Cave thrown in.

Is Poseiden master of his domain?
I never get tired of this story. Don't even really know if it's true but I don't really care because it makes for such a good story. You've got a big square in front of the Art Museum and Opera House that you want to fill with a statue in the late 1920s. So you get an artist to make you the standard Poseiden type fountain.

Nothing to write home about, has a touch of deco style but doesn't really do much for me. However the townsfolk had an issue with the fish he was holding and make the artist change the fish. The artist gets pissed off, changes the fish and the hand position ever so slightly.

So now when the uppity people walk out of the Opera house after a show they look full on at Poseiden - now he's holding a much larger fish. But it also looks like Poseiden is "full on" because it also looks like he has a huge erection that he's stroking. Even better - think of this in the summer with the fountain running with frothy water shooting from the fish's mouth.

This could all be an urban legend but who cares - it's entertaining. And it's also a lesson not to piss off artists because they could secretly pull the rug out from under you.

A couple interesting things I learned last night. Broccoli gave rise to the Mafia and you have to be over 50 to buy alcohol in some US states. Whether either of these claims is true or not I can't say. Couldn't find any info on either except other odd drinking laws - like it's illegal to get fish drunk in Ohio. I've also been promised a version of Kung Fu Fighting in Finnish. That alone would be worth a trip here.

You know what. Telemarketers in a foriegn language still incite the urge to yell and hang up even when you have no idea what they're trying to sell you.

Watching tv in a different timezone. Wonder if CNN or Fox has even mentioned the documentation of the Bush family's ties to Hitler that has finally been released. Probably not.

Cat puke. Can't seem to get away from it no matter where I go.

Damn swedish keyboard. Iäm too tired to find where all the keys are.

Trying to recover from jetlag by surfing and find this story on how the Zarqawi shown on the news might not be the real Zarqawi which sounds a bit like the thing with the Jackal in the 70s and 80s only it backfired.

The house is clean soon to be vomitted and pooped on by cats. but the wiping duties will be left to others ha.

It's true
I never got no sun with you
Now there's acid in my heart

Let see...replace headset on bike with stronger newer style headset instead of cheaper older style headset that I'll destroy in a season like the other two I've already replaced...which means stem has to be replaced to fit with new headset...which means handlebars have to be replace because manufacturers changed the diameter of handlebars ever so slightly in the last few years...since I'm doing that I might as well replace the forks to extend the life of the bike since they probably caused all the headset problems in the first place. The scary part of this is to replace just the front end of my current bike, it will cost double the price of my very first quality road bike in 1985.

BitTorrent download of Jon Stewart calling ass wipe Tucker Carlson a dick on Crossfire. There is a god.

I think the IT peoples in the east finally cut off my access to internet radio. Curses to you IT peoples. This is why I never tell you about what stuff we run in the office.

Holy fuck. That was the hardest tire I've ever tried to get on a wheel. Thought my thumbs were going to be ripped out their joints trying to roll it over the rim.

He may have more money than the Altantic provinces but he obviously can't buy musical taste and still plays a sport that requires polyester pleated pants as a uniform.

One of the few bad things about the new office space so far is that something about the position of the building, whatever is in the walls, and elevation of our floor makes my computer speakers act as powerful receivers for one of the worst local radio stations. When I plug in the iPod the FireWire connection serves as an even bigger antennae and increases the noise of crappy music. What makes it horrible it's the same playlist of shit that made me stop listening to the radio around 1993. Trying to hit a deadline and hearing Only the Good Die Young drown out Super Furry Animals made my eye twitch. Which then lead to this list:

Bands/performers that I may or may not hate but have been played on the radio and elsewhere enough times there is no reason to really listen to them ever again. Their chemical half-life has long been exeeded

Chris De Burgh

Bob Seger

Phil Collins

Billy Joel

Bare Naked Ladies

Supertramp

Melissa Etheridge

Sheryl Crow

John Mellencamp

James Taylor (not to be confused with the James Taylor Quartet)

The Eagles and all solo variants

Stevie Nicks

Janis Joplin

Jackson Browne

Randy Newman

Coldsore errr Coldplay

Madonna

Van Morrison

Elton John

U2

REM

Joni Mitchell

Pink Floyd

Mark Knoffler

Doors

I'm sure I can think of more if you give me time with my speakers. The exception, of course, is if Richard Cheese is doing cover versions.

In the category of great foriegn product names, may I present Unicum. Heehee Unicum. Heehee it's bitters. Heehee it's made by Zwack. It takes so little to entertain my juvenile mind.

don't think you're getting monkeypants.info, greatmazinga.info, or goatstar.info. They're all mine.

so every once in a while i have these types of dreams. This one involved minding some superduper ancient relic with super powers that was being hid for thousands of years in the parkade - disguised as a core sample screwed to a hand rail. before i could go back to claim this prize, someone else grabbed it and unleashed the power inside. Then the whole dream devolved into the this wierd ass Capt Kirk style battle royale between this anonyumous guy (who had now changed into some sort of blue freak with horns) and the alter egoish type thingy that popped out of the core sample.

I love when those crazy kids downstairs crank their bass all evening long. It makes me less concerned about the cats howling and running around at 3am. In fact I may get up a 3 this morning and chase them around.