It's that time again!

It is, really!

As I've yelled about before, I like the idea of starting Christmas in full swing on December 1st. This year, I started two days early, but it's totally cool. In Sweden we absolutely give a shit about the first day of Advent, the fourth Sunday before Christmas (see how that makes perfect sense?) and this year me and Melody decided to go all-out with Christmas decorating and cookie-baking in one sweaty, festive day. I also bought a couch.

Yes, a couch. I've been wanting to replace my old one, which had many shortcomings and few uses beyond turning it into a guest bed. As if I take in guests! Bah, humbug.

In it's stead, I have a monstrous, black mountain of cozyness and comfort. It also includes a chaise longue (which I'm quite certain has a different name in common English.)

Thus, The Holiday Season begins. Onwards, to gifts, snow and an obscene amount of chocolate!

Fuck you, Architects!

This is Architects.

If you've heard them, you most likely have your own opinions about their music. Mine is, they are amazingly talented. Their songs are well-written, simple enough but not bland or really unoriginal, and I'm mostly refering to Ruin and Hollow Crown here. They're incredible musicians. For a bunch of fucking teenagers (hah!) they absolutely dominate their genre in terms of technical finesse and skill.

I could go on and on, but I'm mentioning them for an entirely different reason.

I can not get Architects out of my head.

Seriously. To say that their songs are catchy isn't quite to the point, it's rather a case of brilliant composing and a wonderfully natural flow in every song. But I could name a hundred bands (almost) that share that talent. Amazing groups of musicians whose songs make me want to never play an instrument again (Oceansize come to mind.)

Yet, it is Architects who refuse to leave my sphere of humming, my internal background noise.

Hell, it's been months since I last listened to Early Grave or We're All Alone, but whenever I'm not listening to something else, some god damn choppy riff keeps popping up in my head.

It's driving me crazy – I don't even like them that much. I mean, not that much.

Anyway. My own ridiculous hardcore band was supposed to do a tour with Architects this February. Might have been fun, but they cancelled the whole thing to go to Australia (I think.)

And now we're stuck here trying to write new songs.

That sound exactly like Architects.

iProblems

I went to the optician yesterday, a long overdue appointment.

I've felt for years now that there might be an issue with my visual system worth reprimanding. I can, for instance, barely read subtitles.

I am nearsighted. No big surprise there, it can and will be fixed with glasses or contact lenses.

But why settle for simple? My left eye also suffers from astigmatism, which means the eye doesn't focus equally along the horizontal and vertical axis. It's hard to understand or explain, and apparently difficult to correct as well. So that sucks, and I'll need a pair of goggles.

While I'm not overly excited about wearing corrective spectacles, I look forward to improved vision and actually enjoying things like HD and Blu-ray without having to press my nose against the screen and squint.

And on that subject, I've recycled my Wii, so to speak. Due to a lack of money and new, really good games (well, there's some of both, but not enough) I've gone back to Twilight Princess again – still an absolutely fan-fucking-tas-fucking-tic game – and occasionally continuing my struggle to collect all 120 stars in Super Mario Galaxy.

On top of that, I finally connected the console to a wireless network, enabling all kinds of online funtime downloadyness. Like World of Goo. Or Tales of Monkey Island. Or Mario Kart online, which is really addictive and fun.

In a month, the band will go on tour with American Jesus-core sextet The Devil Wears Prada. I'm pretty excited, if only to see the workings of such an ambitious machine.

Last weekend we played three shows in Sweden, which were, on the whole, a lot of fun (and about as much time as I want to spend with those people in one go.) We sounded pretty good, we got paid, and we broke something in our hotel room, as per our rock star obligation.

A quite flattering example of the kind of wit and wisdom (and musical brilliance) we can look forward to:

'Size

Can't wait.

I hate

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Also

Oh! Continuing my list of things that keep me going – TV is fun again!

Okay, the subject of television shows in respect to quality and quantity, and the seemingly sudden increase of both… should be it's own, long-as-fuck-post, but I won't write it now.

Suffice to say, in the last year I've seen many really good tv shows, and two more are now looming on my 32" horizon.

Both of these cater to the modern pop culture nerd (I'm struggling to find a good word or description here, but basically everyone who thinks 300 is both "fucking awesome!" and a "dignified version of Frank Miller's graphic novel".)

The first is The Pacific, HBO's follow-up to Band of Brothers (pretty much the best thing ever). It seems to be more of the same, if only more epic. Epic is important to the modern geek. Hollywood has understood now, that the epic-money ratio is almost equal (the exception being some of Roland Emmerich's films, which are just silly.)

The Pacific also stars Joseph Mazzello, the kid from Jurassic Park. How 'bout that!

The second is Spartacus: Blood and Sand (you know it), which fuses Gladiator, 300 and Rome. It has more testosterone than watching The Expendables while driving a hummer through a strip club. Just look at the trailer and production video, and you'll agree it has the potential to be profusely epic indeed.

Both will be out sometime next year.

Small doses

That's it.

The last time I submitted anything to this blaaawrgh, summertime was in full swing (the sun was chirping, the birds were shining) and I was gearing up for six weeks of hard work.

That was precicely six weeks ago today, and next week I don't really have a job to go to. I should be alright, I actually don't mind a few days off.

And that's the thing.

I've realized I don't really like doing anything for very long, or even very seriously. It quite silly, and I think very representative of my generation. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. No real job, no one hobby that takes up all your spare time every day for the rest of your life. Even relationships in many cases just wear out and we're always adamant in our belief that a bit of change is A OK.

Anyway. I'm not a big fan of this, my own, attitude. Stability and genuine dedication to any one cause is, I think, desirable.

As grey as my days may feel, there are things that excite me. Here are some:

Going to London (at some point, hopefully within the next three months.)

Movies. Big Fan, Sherlock Holmes, The Lovely Bones, and looking further ahead – Alice In Wonderland, Avatar, Prince of Persia, and many others.

Music. Things tend to pop up (no pun intended) here and there, so there's not that much anticipation. However, some highlights include new music by Yo La Tengo, Beastie Boys and Oceansize, and the ever-impending new album by Glassjaw.

Touring with Jesaiah. Possibly.

Redecorating. Basically I've finally gotten fed up with the shortcomings of my residence. The bed. The couch. The big, empty wall behind the TV. It's a beautiful place to live, by all means, but now I want to, once and for all, sort things out.