James Hewitt would have summed it up
4 Comments Posted on April 28, 2007
I’ve used James Hewitt’s autobiography as a hangover punishment lately. My initial idea was to increase the hardship associated with a ‘day after’ by forcing myself to go through this presumably egocentric and boring memoir. I was refreshingly wrong. The man is a cliché of tee-drinking polo-playing Brits. From now on, my very role model. I just spent four hours cracking down on this page-turner.
Now I’m heading out for some running — I’ve found some great trails down around the Rhône river. But before I do, I wanna show off my good-looking Stockholmian friends. It’s a shame I haven’t posted these photos and summed up my ‘Scandinavian Tour’ yet. It’ll have to stay a shame.
A word is worth a thousand pictures
3 Comments Posted on April 13, 2007
Long story short, after easter, I hung out in the wilderness for a couple of days. Making fires. Killing animals. Manly stuff. On Thursday, I went down to Gothenburg and wrote an exam at my school. Afterwards, since the weather was great, we gathered up a team of Dekadenz-dudes and drank beer on a lawn the rest of the day. 15 hours later, I woke up on A-man’s and Jopsy’s couch. Live hard, die hard. We all know the drill.
Touring Scandinavia
4 Comments Posted on April 7, 2007
I’m currently touring Scandinavia and visiting as many friends as possible on the way.
I flew from Geneva on Thursday afternoon, arrived to Oslo 18ish, and spent the night crawling bars with Philip, an old friend of mine. Several life-improving schemes were developed and field tested throughout the night. Among them, a brand new pick-up strategy involving heavy usage of South African influences, perceived unattractiveness, and self-deprecation. Love Oslo’s nightlife.
On Good Friday, Philip and I got on the bus back home to Sweden. We didn’t waste any time before gathering the “Lökarnes” crew over at GG, Uddevalla’s local fancy dandy hang-out. I also met up with a buddy from my university, Johan, and his amazing girl friend, Martina. Credz Johan! Great to see everyone again! Lots of love.
![The three [amigos|stooges|pigs|bears|graces]](http://www.marcuslife.com/wp-content/dsc01462.JPG)
It’s good to be back in Sweden. Love it. Stay tuned for more touring, more friends, more cities, more Marcus. I know you want it.
Sweden or Switzerland?
2 Comments Posted on March 28, 2007
Many people have trouble keeping apart Sweden and Switzerland. A shame — of course — since there are plenty of differences. According to The Economist’s “Pocket World in Figures 2007 Edition”, Switzerland beats Sweden in most aspects, especially in the areas of business and finance. But unless you’ve memorized tables of the latest business competitiveness or human development index, spotting the other, often subtle, differences is hard for all newcomers. Fortunately, I recently sat down and thought through the problem. I’ve analyzed year-worth of statistics, interviewed plenty of Swedish and Swiss citizens, and spent more than two months on-site in Geneva. Just to be able to define a rule of thumb, easy to remember, yet always correct:
Look up the number of prostitutes in the telephone book. If there are any, you’re in Switzerland.
What it’s all about
7 Comments Posted on March 26, 2007
Sometimes a cup of warm chocolate says it all. L’instant plaisir damn it!
Anyway, let’s skip the fuzz and get to the nitty gritty; last Saturday, Arnstein, David, and myself went skiing in the French Alps at a place called Avioraz. Since I haven’t been doing any real physical activity the last three months — certainly not any skiing! — I was completely messed up afterwards. Adding to the weekend’s destructional exercises, an overly intoxicating house warming party together with CERN’s basketball team, two awesome New Yorkers, a Harvard student that lived close to me in Boston, a couple of crowd-fillers from Proctor & Gamble, a theoretical physicist from Czech Republic, a Dutch proponent of the continued colonization of the West Indies, and a bunch of fellow Swedes, resulted in an awfully unpleasant “day after”
At Chalmers, someone once compared me to a “frail seedling”, referring to my disability to eat a spicy sausage. That felt like a remarkably suitable simile waking up on Sunday morning.
And finally, on a completely unrelated note, an excerpt from the distinguished Alfred Nobel’s will, with the noteworthy snippet in bold:
As Executors of my testamentary dispositions, I hereby appoint Mr Ragnar Sohlman, resident at Bofors, Värmland, and Mr Rudolf Lilljequist, 31 Malmskillnadsgatan, Stockholm, and at Bengtsfors near Uddevalla. To compensate for their pains and attention, I grant to Mr Ragnar Sohlman, who will presumably have to devote most time to this matter, One Hundred Thousand Crowns, and to Mr Rudolf Lilljequist, Fifty Thousand Crowns;
77e Salon International de l’Auto
2 Comments Posted on March 15, 2007
Pictures etc. from the car convention in Geneva. Clickety-clicki.
Voyage au centre de la Terre
6 Comments Posted on February 28, 2007
Marcus says:
As of March 6, there’s now a video from our visit to the ATLAS pit at the very bottom of this blog post. Thanks Knut!
Browsing through the shelves at my local book store the last week, I came across a copy of Jules Verne’s classic novel A journey to the center of the earth. A story we all know and love as the adventure of an adolescent boy, who together with his uncle descends down through a volcano, towards the very core of the earth itself. Although this particular story is commonly considered one of Verne’s most fictional works — in short, a sell-out — I remember reading it with great interest and rock-solid curiosity. Never would I thought, that today, more than ten years later, I would take off on a much similar journey.
It didn’t feel like the elevator ride down through the shaft took very long. But according to our guide, we were now more than 100 meters below surface.
We were soon walking down through a white-painted corridor. Everyone wore yellow helmets. Some sort of machines were making a buzzing noise in the background. Then we took to the right, a little bit further, and suddenly, the guide turned around, lowered his voice and softly proclaimed that behind the door we were now standing in front of, stood mankind’s most advanced invention. The very frontier of science; an artifact representing the barrier of human’s understanding of the universe she lives in.
The guide opened the door, and there it was: the ATLAS.
To say the view was impressive would be an under-statement. You see, to stand in front of this huge to-be collision chamber, attached to the world’s biggest particle accelerator, is not only impressive just because it’s an awesome sight. It’s also impressive to stand down there, in front of ATLAS, since that thing will be an integral part of upcoming physics for a very long time. Not that I know anything about the Higg’s boson, or not even the asymmetry between the behavior of matter and antimatter, but — and trust me on this — you don’t need to be a physicist to appreciate seeing something of that size, with so many expected implications to future science.
It was just a blast… Make sure to check out this short introduction to ATLAS and the LHC. Also, at the end of the clip, you’ll get a glimpse of one of my lunch restaurants (Not quite as interesting as something that recreates the Big Bang. I know).
Oh, and there’s this video showing the construction process during the fours years it’s taken so far to assemble ATLAS, condensed down to a couple of minutes or so. Take a look, it’s pretty cool.
Update:
Thanks to fellow CERNie, Knut Bjørkli, I’ve finally got my 15 minutes of fame. Enjoy!
Saving big bucks
4 Comments Posted on February 24, 2007
After e-filing my income from America last year, I feel a huge desire to let you know that the third-party firm I chosed to deliver my tax return to IRS (It might seem odd for a Skandinavians, but that’s the way it’s done in the States) is called Tax Slayer.
Their name was — of course — the only reason I picked them. One have to know one’s priorities.
Anyway, instead of having to pay back 500 bucks, that a previous online estimate told me, I’m getting a $400 refund! Some transcendental creature must be involved, because just this morning, I stumbled on the picture below. That’s a big buck and a slayer combined. In case you didn’t notice.
A real solid band of Rock n’ roll
Leave a Comment Posted on February 24, 2007
Today, I’m just hanging around, regaining energy lost during the week and from last night at Le Scandale. Hang-overs are great for contemplation, and today’s theme seems to be music.
Steve Jobs recently decided to wipe out everything from my iPod/iTunes library. He said something about files being corrupted. He’s a jerk. But thanks to Web 2.0, I’ll never need any music laying around on magnetic disks again. Nah, that’s so 1999.
Last.FM, a social network of music recommendations and free streaming music has helped me discover all kinds of great artists lately. Judging from the list to the right labeled Recent Weekly Artists, populated from Last.FM’s data, I’m into surf music. In particular The 5.6.7.8’s, a Japanese all-female garage/surf rock band known for doing 50’s - 80’s covers and for some of their songs being played in Kill Bill, volume 1. They’ve even made a Long tall Sally, an amusing version indeed, but not a match to Little Richard’s ass-whopping original.
The old French hag
4 Comments Posted on February 23, 2007
Last night, the creepiest old hag stood next to me at a bus stop. She was obviously completely nuts, because she had that look in her eyes. Plus, she was carrying around a dirty frying pan.
I didn’t look straight at her, but I could tell she was definitely eyeballing me. Her whole being radiated “I just escaped from the mental ward, and I might decide to crack your head open with my good ol’ pan”.
Then the bus arrived. The crazy woman ran before everyone else in the line, making noises, completely desperate to get a good seat. You now the type.
When I got off the bus, the old crook got off as well! After a while, I realized she was following me. Was this for real? It certainly felt real. I could smell her stinking clothes since she was walking right up my back. Also, a spasm seemed to make her swing the pan from now and then. I decided to pick up some speed. It felt like she was trying to get my attention. But she didn’t say anything. And I could hear from her breathing that my faster pace was talking a toll on her.
She followed me all the way to my house. I had put some distance behind us, so I had time to open the code-lock and get inside. When she realized that she wouldn’t be able to get hold of me before I was inside, she started to scream. Really, screaming. But not words, just noises. That was totally freaking me out.
When at the door, she started to hammer her fists against the glass window. And it was then when I realized that she also was waiving at me with my gloves. I must have dropped them when getting off the bus. I opened the door, and she handed them over. She didn’t say a word. But she pointed at her throat as if to say “I’m mute”. I felt ashamed, but said at least merci beaucoup madame, before she left leaving me completely fracked up.
I spent the rest of the night feeling like an asshole for thinking she was crazy. On the other hand, she probably was. Or maybe I haven’t got used to the mindset of French senior citizens yet. I asked Google what’s up with “french women with frying pans”, and after some site-hopping I ended up at Cecil’s latest column, which didn’t really shed any light on my thoughts but at least gave me a clue of what to expect from nightlife out in the French countryside.
There's a place in France where the naked ladies dance.
There's a hole in the wall where the men can see it all.
The way they shake is enough to kill a snake.
