The mannequins are my only companions.

Let's try to make that Skype call soon!
Peace and love from San Fran!

And after digging around in the archive I found this old lovely mastepiece:

My dad & Jim's dad in American Pie

Apart from the extraordinary drama series Friday Night Lights and a short attempt to review one of the NFL games (played 10 minuites and then returned it) I can't say I've had a close relationship with American football. Allthough the amount of rules has scared me off I've definitely wanted to learn more about it. The sport seemed like one of the most interesting sport in the world. Action packed like the movie 300 and tactical as hell. Tonight the time had finally come, the time for SUPER BOWL!!! We went home to Johans band members (they're having a punk band & Johan's the drummer) place where around 25 people had gathered around a small (for being american) television to watch the NFL championship between New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts.



Every year millions and millions of people gather to watch the championship game of their lands far most popular sport, or to laugh their asses of to some of the hilarious and crazy expensive commercials that's beeing aired on every short break. Every spot costs around 3 million USD! They put so much money into these commercials that it's the lands second biggest income recource, after warfare. If some evil hacker would kill the podcast, both the american government and the american people would be as revengeful as when the planes crashed into World Trade Centre. Fo sho!

Nough said, it was a great first game to watch! Thrilling, shifting, exciting. Saints started weak but managed to turn the game to a well deserved victory. I sat next to a butcher (he had a trucker moustache and trucker hat) who explained the rules every time I had a question. So now I think I would actually be able to watch a game without feeling completely lost.

American level up!

The quality of my english goes up and down all the time. It's the best after 1-2 beers, but it's been extremly bad the past week. I've been mumbling and I've had a hard time finding the right words. Making me feel stupid and retarded. I blame it on the lack of sleep and exercise lately. And the air is terrible down here at the first floor of the office. And it's dark. Starting to feel like a trapped bat who's been hanging upside down for a while. Not the most creative environment, and bad for me now when I've got an exciting brief and need to be sharp.

But hey, an action packed weekend coming up. Party tonight, concert tomorrow and Super Bowl on sunday!
Let's hope it's refreshing.

It's been on repeat for three days straight and it's sweaping me away every damn time.
In fact, it's been a while since I became this addicted to a song.
Beach House's new album Teen Dream is already qualified for my Best of 2010-list.
It's sweepy and slow, but never sleepy. It's dreamy, vibrant, warm and beautiful.
I can't stop listening to it!
EPIC!

Here in the states, every single toilet visit with destination number two easily becomes a tactical battlefield. For some unexplained reason every toilet I've been to so far in this country is a poor excuse for a toilet. Thin walls and spaces between the floor and the walls don't really lower the sound you oftenly want to keep to yourself.



When you're about to take a dump and someone else jumps into the booth next to you, that's when the game begins.
The game of battle shits!

Who will start first?
Do I dare to start?
Will I sound?
Who will sound the most?
Should I wait for him to start and try to hide my sound in his sound?
Should I wait until he's done and start when he's flushing the toilet?

To hear another person take a dump right next to you feels more intimidating than hearing someone having sex.

And you can always see the other persons shoes.
You wonder - Who is that guy?
Just to try to find the person who sat next to you by trying to recognize his shoes becomes a game itself, especially at work.

It's like their made the toilets to make you feel uncomfortable.  How can Americans who's usually very aware of their privacy, tolerate this? 

Wish me luck, cause now I need to go.

Finally Johan & Johan have their own apartment! Allthough it's a little bit too small for two people and allthough a car filled street runs right outside the window, it's a very sweet studio flat that feels more European than American. No broadlooms here!

L.A, the lovely guy who we're renting from left a bunch of fun bonuses before he moved to NYC.
Guitar! Turn table! Stereo! LP's! And a lot of various necessary things we now don't need to buy.

I had a good night sleep the first night even if Johan #2 stole all the sheet.

Things have really started to happening over here. Last week included three parties, lots of new phone numbers and more work on my shoulders. I have two deadlines coming up in the beginning of this week. I even needed to step in today to finish some work. Not the funniest way to spend a day when the sun is shining outside and you're hung over from last nights wine soaked party. But hey, at least I got some sun yesterda. Awesome weather and a trip to the beautiful Marina area.



Friday was interesting indeed. Goodbye party at work. Two people became "freelancers" (The kind way to firing someone). Mekanism sure knows how to party. Starting at 4 pm, with a bartender who made awesome Maragaritas. Then the kegs arrived and people started performing keg stands. At this point the only contact I've had with a keg was via high school movies. To see one IRL really felt TRUE AMERICAN.



One CEO after another stepped forward to be lifted upside down and get beer poored down (or up) their throats. Just before I left, my creative director draged the keg into the elevator. And as the elevator went down he shouted "ELEVATOR KEG STAND!" and performed a kegstand, in the elevator. CRAZY SHIT! Then they all went into the sound room, going berzerk on the drum set and the guitars. Didn't sound that bad actually.

For me the night also ended with music. Just before I left Sweden I found a band called Hard Girls, which released an awesome EP last year. This night they played in Oakland, at a place called The Hive, so I descided to take the train there. When I arrived at the right adress, this is what I saw:



Could this be right? A gig in a house?

Three smoking dudes welcomed me. And yep, this was the right place! The people in the house is making room in the basement (someones bedroom) for small bands who's touring. The shows are all free and you are welcome into the house. To see a really good band perform in a 20 square meter large room in someones basement with an audience of 30 people sure is an awesome and unique experience. After the gig I ended up talking to the band for an hour or so. Really fun guys who's got some great potential. They've allready warmed up for big punk bands like Against Me! and is starting to get a lot of publicity and good reviews in media.

Good luck guys! Nice meeting ya!

When I came back from lunch there was a package waiting on my desk


I opened it, and SURPSRISE - there was a blue beard!


And all of a sudden we were three beardos. Ryan, me and Emmet


Emmet dropped of and somewhere around midnight Little Saturday (the middle (I gave her that name)) joined the party. We put on an appreciated show oustide a gym then went for some beer drinking at three-four different pubs. 


Took a detour over Russian Hill. Amazing view from there.


Ended up at Ryans place, cooking dinner and playing videogames.


Woke up in Ashbury after two hours of sleep.


Then back to work.

Me and Johan Cavemar are moving out from Marius apartment. Marius girlfriend is coming here all the way from Norway to stay for a while. They havn't seen each other in 2 months (if you don't count their 6(!) hours of Skype conversations everyday), so we need to leave them some private space.

For me and Johan this means a fresh start. A new chapter in the San Francisco tale begins! First we gona stay at Maja's place a couple of days before moving into our own tiny but permanent apartment at McAllister Street.

So, bye bye Brannan Street and Marius and thanks for the past month.

I don't think I've ever showed you the crib, so here's some pics:

The livingroom where me and Johan spent the most of our time


Long live broadlooms! Good for sleeping and absorbing spilled beer.


The kitchen

He crawled out of a dark corner in the bar claiming he was the better half because he had the reddest hair.
Maybe he has, but I still look better. HAH!

Maybe an episode of Mad Men can do it.

I've been here for a month now. INSANE! Feels like yesterday I walked through the door to Marius apartment at Brannan Street. It didn't take long to adjust. Life over here already starting to become a little bit of a routine. 9 to 7 work every weekday and parties on weekdays. Maybe it's because of the continiuosly rainy weather or the fact that I'm not in a far away country just for fun and relaxing days at the beach, but right now San Francisco doesn't feel that much different from a traditional Sweden autumn. Sort of grey and usual, except for the language. It's obvious how much the weather affects my temper. That and my stomach, who's been very loud the last couple of days after a three week long and peaceful coma. And the alcohol. I said it before - "I'm starting to get to old for that shit". Last night I drank one rum & coke and one glas of beer. When I woke up today I felt so weak and tired, as I've been feeling after all parties lately.



Don't get me wrong. I really enjoy being here and of course there's much more to look forward to.
I just think I need to activate myself a little bit more. Exercise more, meet more new people, explore new parts of town and so forth. Good balance in life is fuckin important. You can't just get stuck in front of a computer screen. And I'm not just gona sit here and complain. That's not Johan Blomborg. This is ment to be one big adventure. And I'm gona make that happen.

Five months to go!

Weekend!
Movie night with home made food, cola and popcorn (Our microwave has a popcorn preset mode!!!).
Different movie wishes, as usual.
United.
Breakfast Club - Awesome movie.

Then.
Watched the trailer for Death Sentence. Looked promising. Sort of psyched we were!
Started to watch it.
And, at first is was promising. Maybe a little bit jumpy storytellingwise and some B-acting here and there, but still intriguing with a well executed parking garage sequence.
But somewhere halfway through something goes terribly wrong. It all falls apart. All credibility and  authenticity goes straight to hell as the movie tries to fit in every single genre there is. A pretty solid revenge driven drama/thriller/action-movie in line with Taken turns into a forky splatter/videogame/grindhouse wannabie where there's absolutely no sympathy for the main character (Kevin Bacon) what so ever.

What went wrong?

Here's some assumtions:

A. The entire production team was swapped out. The new team was led by Uwe Boll.
B. They didn't have a finished script and were running out of time. 
C. Kevin Bacon wanted to shave his head and play Rambo one time before seeing his career come to an end.

This time last year was the time before Spotify's big breakthrough, so when I did this I had to find YouTube videos of every damn song I wanted to play for you. This time around it's different. Everyone has Spotify, and since Spotify starting to get a pretty solid library of songs, creating a Spotify playlist is the most convenient way to share music.

For almost everything else there's Groove Shark. A pretty neat service that works almost exactly like Spotify, except that it's completely online and that it has a lot of songs you still can't find on it's bigger brother.

So here you go, 63 songs (about 4 hours of music). And since I know that many of you people don't like my punkrock & hardcore side, I saved you pussies some "skipping track"-trouble and put these at the bottom of the lists.
Not so very punkrock of me, but nice, ey?

Spotify playlist

Groove Shark playlist

Even if I sometimes feel like a bat, sitting in the dark lower parts of the office, I can't complain. I'm getting fed. The fridges at are fully stocked with different kinds of free bevereges (Beer, Coke, Snapple, Dr.Pepper etc) and there's bowls filled with candy. When it's hectic times at the office and when it's a lot to do, Mekanism even brings in food for their hard working ants. Last night I had my first late nighter at the office. After a meeting at 7 pm we needed to wrap some stuff up before today's deadline. So I stayed until midnight. Fortunately I got a really yummy salmon sandwich in return, and hopefully some kudos for my work.

Our unknown caveman neighbour's apartment



VS

Johan Cavemar's corner in our apartment

Saturday striked hard. "We're gona take it slow" didn't work, as usual. As we crawled up Haight Street the booze kept on coming. A beer here, a White Russian there. Ryan, my Art Director, is one hell of a generous buyer. Yesterday was mainly soked in headaches and slow pace.

Today it's a red day in the calendar, a day to mark the birth of Marthin Luther King. I don't know if Americans celebrating this happening in some way, but the important thing is that I'm off work, which is NICE (I always though the weekends should be 3 days long). Or I mean, it should be nice. I should be happy and relaxed, but I'm still feeling very dull and powerless from saturday's party, and I have a lot of important stuff I need to take care of. It looks like crap in some corners of our home, so I should clean. I need to start receiving money, so I should fix my csn papers and my american security number. I should cook some fresh & healthy dinner, but there's some pizza slices left in the fridge. I should finnish a case movie I promised to help out with. But the rain keeps falling and there's a lot more relaxing to watch a few more episodes of Mad Men...

So lets start with...a few more hours in the couch accompanied by Donald Draper. It's one of these lazy days.