There are countries where just as many speak Icelandic as speak English. Iceland is such a country, and so is Mali. Albeit they’ve just discovered that French isn’t lingua franca anymore, and thus they all want to learn English, they’re not quite there yet. I’m lucky I grabbed a French computer to learn from, so I can at least tell the Malinese that the ping timed out, or ask them to copy’n'paste stuff and other useful words such as “wireless”, “start”, “search”, “accept”, “cancel” and “next”.

Back home it is freezing cold, and a week before we left Sweden, the cold, wet, refuckingpulsive snow began falling from the sky. Snow in mountains is good. It might be cold, but it stays snowy, it’s not that wet, and you can dress accordingly. Then you can put long plastic thingies on your feet, and glide down the hills. That’s fun. When you get bored you can get drunk. That’s fun too.

Snow in Stockholm is just refuckingpulsive. It doesn’t stay snowy. It becomes a cold, wet, muddy slush that gets into everywhere. And if you dress for the cold, you have to dress/undress frequently as you go in and out of buildings. I hate snow. Malinese have never seen snow. I like the Malinese.

Bada Lodge

A couple of days ago, we went to “Bada Lodge“. It’s a resort at the Niger river, about an hour away with a slow boat. I liked the boat trip, and Bada Lodge might be a very nice place, but it’s not what I would call Africa. Such places are everywhere around the world, and as long as the climate is good where they are, they’re certainly nice. But I want to experience Africa and Mali, the people, the culture and the atmosphere, including the poverty, the dust and the emissions. You don’t do that at places like Bada Lodge, but I guess my brother’s kids got more out of it than downtown Bamako.

Phoneshop

In downtown Bamako there are “boutiques” called names like “Riyadh Electronics”, “New York Shop” and “Paris Boutique de Luxe”. They are built with four tree branches with a roof of corrugated metal or straw (or a combination). The electronics include 486 computers, bakelite phones and huge calculators. The range of clothing is a bit better, at least if your into domestic traditional stuff (with velcro). They also sell traditional music instruments (with strings of nylon), traditional art (cars made of used coke cans) and all kind of Chinese second class stuff. But if you go beyond the crap, you can find the nice stuff. Today, we bought 40 metres of high quality fabric for less than €40.

I was at a Bamako football derby between Le Stade Malien de Bamako and Jeanne D’Arc. Le Stade won the African Confederation Cup this year, promising a good game, but apparently it was Le Stade 2 playing, in some other division. The level of football was comparable to juniors back home, four drummers (playing african rhythms for 105 minutes), two cow bells, a boat horn and no singing on the stands. Not the culture I’m used to with AIK, but it was fun anyway. Le Stade was the better team, but Jeanne D’Arc (looking like and playing like Trelleborgs FF) won by 1-0 (a counterattack, of course). The sold all kinds f stuff on the stands, including eggs.

Malian football supporter drummers video

Boudin

Ever since I was a little kid, my father always told me that Boudin is a blood sausage, and that the French Foreign Legion sings a song about making Boudin out of their enemies. But I’ve never seen any Boudin in real life. Until yesterday. The place where we celebrated new year’s eve had Boudin with mustard sauce on the menu! It didn’t take more than 37 years. I tasted surprisingly good.

I had a meeting with the Malinese police, since one of them stole the key for the moped I borrowed from one of my mother’s guards. Someone had told them that a traffic light high up in the sky was valid on the street, six meters below. Like if anyone would ever have the time to look up in the sky in the Malinese traffic chaos, full of people, goats (they call them sheep, but they also call crocodiles “caïmans”, even though there are no caymans outside South America, USA and China, so I’m pretty sure they’re goats), donkeys, carts, mopeds, cars and minibuses. I explained that traffic lights at that level could only be valid for flying vehicles. It took 20 minutes of French-pidgin-English negotiations before they agreed, and gave me the moped key back. Half the time I was trying to figure out what freaking fire he was talking about, since he yelled “The fire! No see? The fire!” over and over again.

If it taught me anything? Yup. I learned that “red light” and “fire” is the same word in French.

Tydligen bor det en riktig tråkmåns i Hägersten, och han ruttnade på min fina skylt. Men det hade han ingenting för! Lokaltidningen Mitt i Söderort rapporterar på förstasidan:

Okej att registrera bil som ITHORA

En Hägerstensbo som retat sig på en registreringsskylt med ordet ITHORA på har begärt att skylten ska återkallas.

Den specialbeställda skylten, som sitter på en bil från Stockholmsområdet, är en så kallad personlig fordonsskylt. En sådan får inte ha bokstavskombinationer som kan väcka anstöt eller medföra olägenhet för någon. Men trots att Hägerstensbon, som själv är i IT-branschen, ansåg att skylten både var stötande och olämplig har Transportstyrelsen avvisat hans begäran. Anledningen är att mannen inte är direkt berörd av ordet ITHORA.

- Den som godkände det här ordet trodde förmodligen att det handlade om ett namn, säger Martin Staczynski vid Transportstyrelsen.

Zandra Zernell

Det är fjärde gången skylten hamnar i tidningen, efter den här, den här och den här.

Edit: IDG uppmärksammar också ärendet.

2009 är ett helt överlägset derbyår! Det har aldrig tidigare hänt att något av de tre stora stockholmslagen har vunnit samtliga allsvenska matcher mot bägge de övriga två. Eftersom AIK även segrade mot Brommapojkarna två gånger, så blir rekordet än mer oslagbart.

Utöver de tre stora har IF Brommapojkarna, Westermalms IF och Reymersholms IK spelat i Allsvenskan. De år Westermalm och Reymersholme har spelat i Allsvenskan har dock både Djurgården och Hammarby lyst med sin frånvaro. De enda säsonger det har funnits fyra Allsvenska Stockholmslag är 2007 och 2009, och bägge gångerna blev AIK kungar i stan:

Derbytabellen 2009:

Derbytabellen 2007:

Med ovanstående tabeller som alibi, så lämnar vi nu de tre mindre lagen. Derbyn med stort D spelas mot Hammarby och Djurgården. Vi bortser även från alla år då endast två stockholmslag har spelat i Allsvenskan. Hädanefter koncentrerar vi oss alltså på de år då alla de tre stora stockholmslagen har spelat i Allsvenskan samtidigt. Vi räknar med tre poäng för vinst.

Första trelagstabellen

Första gången tre stockholmslag spelade samtidigt i Allsvenskan var 1954-55. På hösten 1954 vann AIK först mot Hammarby med 3-1 där 30095 åskådare fick se Kurre Hamrin inleda AIK:s målskytte. En vecka senare slog AIK publikrekord mot Djurgården då 40458 fick se AIK förlora med 1-0. Det är fortfarande AIK:s näst högsta hemmapublik någonsin. I vårderbyna 1955 blev det ombytta roller - förlust mot Hammarby och vinst mot Djurgården.

Derbytabellen 1954-55:

Även om man räknar bort Brommapojkarna så ser derbytabellen för 2009 imponerande ut. Den ser till och med ännu mer imponerande ut än med Brommapojkarna inräknade, eftersom gårdagens mål av Simon Helg då är det enda derbymålet som AIK har släppt in i år. Dessutom får Djurgården en nolla i poängkolumnen, vilket endast har hänt en enda gång förut (Hammarby 1995).

Derbytabellen med stort D 2009:

Tidigare rekord

Det har aldrig tidigare hänt att ett Stockholmslag har skramlat ihop tolv poäng genom idel derbyvinster. Rekordet innan årets säsong var 10 poäng på fyra matcher, vilket har hänt ett antal gånger:

Först ut var Djurgården publikrekordåret 1959, genom 1-1 mot AIK och tre vinster i övrigt. Det året förlorade AIK även bägge derbyna mot Hammarby med 3-2, vilket gör 1959 till vårt sämsta derbyår någonsin med en enda intjänad poäng på fyra matcher. Nu glömmer vi 1959.

Nästa tiopoängare står samma Djurgården för, i Allsvenskan 1975. Även då är det AIK som genom ett oavgjort resultat sätter stopp för Djurgårdens svit. AIK vinner en av matcherna mot Hammarby, och stannar därmed på fyra derbypoäng.

1979 är det Hammarbys tur att få ihop tio poäng. Återigen är det AIK som står för den oavgjorda matchen. Två oavgjorda mot Djurgården ger totalt tre derbypoäng till AIK.

1981 slår Hammarby till igen. Den här gången står Djurgården för den oavgjorda matchen. AIK skramlade ihop fyra derbypoäng genom en vinst och en oavgjord mot Djurgården.

1999 är det så äntligen vår tur. 0-0 i höstderbyt mot Djurgården sätter stopp för vår fullpoängare (och SM-guldet). 1999 var alltså vårt bästa derbyår innan i år, och vi hade faktiskt till och med lite bättre målskillnad då än i år.

Derbytabellen 1999:

2003 gör Djurgården om bedriften för tredje gången, och återigen är det AIK som står för den oavgjorda matchen, efter en helt osannolik vändning i slutminuterna. AIK spelar en oavgjord även mot Hammarby, och slutar på ynka 2 derbypoäng.

Bortsett från året säsong och 1999 så är det alltså de andra två som har stått för de poängmässiga derbyrekorden. Men det är långt ifrån anledning att misströsta, då vi från och med i år har det oslagbara rekordet, och då den sammanlagda derbytabellen har en förkrossande AIK-övervikt! Samtliga allsvenska matcher mellan de tre lagen ger nämligen följande tabell:

Den totala derbytabellen 1924-2009:

Att AIK och Djurgården har spelat ett ojämnt antal matcher beror på att bägge lagen spelade i “Marathon-allsvenskan” 1957-58. Inför serieomläggningen till vår-höst 1959 mötte alla lag varandra tre gånger istället för två. Det är också den jämnaste derbytabellen någonsin, eftersom de tre mötena slutade 1-1, 1-1 och 0-0. Alltså tre poäng var och 2-2 i målskillnad för bägge lagen.

/P

Edit: Såväl AIK som Aftonbladet uppmärksammar också derbyrekordet.

Wanderson har som kanske bekant lirat utan arbetstillstånd i Sverige. Det innebär att GAIS har använt en spelare som de inte får använda enligt reglerna. Dock finns det ett antal frågetecken:

Vilken dom kommer att utdelas? (Det står inget om detta i reglerna.)

• Ingen alls
• Poängavdrag
• Poängavdrag samt pluspoäng för motståndarna
• Sätta resultatet till 0-3 i samtliga inblandade matcher

Vilka matcher ska domen gälla? (Det förra tillståndet tog slut 2009-07-27, samma dag som matchen mot AIK, och han ansökte om ett nytt 2009-09-17, samma dag som matchen mot Gefle IF.)

• 2009-07-27 — 2009-09-12
• 2009-07-27 — 2009-09-17
• 2009-07-27 — nu
• 2009-08-03 — 2009-09-12
• 2009-08-03 — 2009-09-17
• 2009-08-03 — nu

Matcherna det kan handla om:

Nedan har du en interaktiv liten snurra där du kan välja förutsättningar och sedan se vilka förändringar som sker i tabellen. Mycket nöje!

Edit: Tydligen är det bara Örebro SK som kan anmäla, eftersom anmälan måste vara inne senast fem dagar efter förseelsen. Och tydligen kan de bara ändra matcher som har spelats de senaste 14 dagarna. Artikel.

Så finns det äntligen en AIK-kalender. Vi pratade om det i statistikgänget, men då tänkte vi skapa en för statistiksidan, som även innehöll historiska matcher. AIK nappade tydligen på idén och skapade en för årets matcher, både för damer och herrar. Antingen kan ni ladda ner den till Outlook eller till valfri kalender (t ex Google Calendar). Sedan är det bara att synka in grejerna i telefonen. Har ni ingen egen kalender så kan ni ju bokmärka den här sidan och kika nedan (damer i rött).

It’s been a real pinball period now, with the IFPA World Pinball Championships last weekend, and the European Pinball Championships (EPC) the weekend before that. The EPC was in Northampton, a bunch of miles north of London. Me and some other Swedish players were scheduled to land on Heathrow at 13.50 local time, but since the famous English weather decided to close Gatwick down, we had to wait in the air for an hour before we could land. Oh well, we had plenty of time to get to Northampton…

Heathrow - Northampton, a 103 km drive on highways.

View Larger Map

…and it took plenty of time to get to Northampton. Since the weather couldn’t stop us, the UK Department for Transport did its best. Road works and accidents combined made the 1h+ drive take more than three hours. We were supposed to start playing the country tournament at 17.45, and at 17.40 we arrived to Northampton. By then our handheld GPS had run out of batteries, and we hadn’t brought the car charger. Another car with Swedish players were behind us though, and they had a working GPS, so when they arrived to Northampton, we used them as GPS by proxy, and finally arrived at the site at 18.00 sharp. The warming up that we had planned turned into an instant start of team tournament matches.

The Jochniyle Trans-Atlantic Express

But despite the abrupt start all the Swedish teams did well, and when the qualifications round was over, all three Swedish teams were among the six teams that made it into the final, ending up on place 1, 2 (my team) and 5. A 50% chance of a Swedish victory! However, one of the American teams was the better players, and they won the team tournament. My own team had apparently burned all our energy in the qualifications, and we ended up on sixth place. The other two Swedish teams took the 2nd and 3rd places.

The organizers had apparently taken the warning about the tight schedule seriously, since they had done everything in their power to minimize the ball times on the games. This makes the outcome more random, and a lot of good players didn’t make it into the finals. Players like Neil Shatz, Roy Wils, Albert Nomden, Jorian Engelbrektsson and myself ended up on embarresing positions. I ended up as 89:th, which is my all time low in ANY tournament, and the first time I ever miss the finals in a big tournament (except PAPA).

Anyway, it made it possible for me to put all efforts into the Classics tournament. They had eight classic games put up, and the best score on each game would continue into the finals. I took aim for Big Fair, and had a battle against Roy Wils for the win. I finally got 3453 against his 2893, and made it into the finals.  And so did four (almost five) other Swedes! That’s domination…

Classics finalists

The semifinal was played on Time Fantasy, where Jörgen Holm and I scored around 2 million points each, leaving the other two way behind. In the finals, Jörgen and I met Neil Shatz and Jim Belsito on Firepower. Belsito got over a million, giving him the victory, and I got second place with about half a million. The silver medal somewhat compensated for the catastrophy in the main division, and at least I didn’t had to go home empty-handed.

Jörgen and I had a flight booked the same evening, so we left immediately after the Classics final. We arrived at Heathrow in time to check in and return the rental car, and went for a smoke. After the smoke we headed towards security, but they wouldn’t let us in! The didn’t say why, and just directed us to a desk. At that desk they explained that there’s a new rule, saying you have to arrive at security at least 35 minutes before take-off. We looked at the time. 33 minutes to take-off. We’d been ONE minute late! She said there was a 30 minute wait at security. Heck, we were at terminal 5, there’s never more than ten minutes to wait at terminal 5 security. And BA flights to Sweden is at gate A10 or A11, which is a two minute walk from security.

If I wanted to catch a train, I’d get down to the train station, and if I’m there at least ten seconds before take-off, I’m on my train. But when flying, you have to be there hours before take-off, and go through a lot of meaningless procedures and elephantiasis security measures. And of those hours, 99% is waiting time! What the heck is wrong with the aviation business?? They really need an extreme makeover.

We rescheduled our flight and found ourselves a hotel, and all together that smoke was the most expensive one (with ordinary tobacco) of my life. Heathrow hotels really know how to get paid more for less.

Todd playing with cows

A week later I was back in England again. This time for the IFPA World Pinball Championships in, or rather outside of, Hemel Hempstead. Nick Bennet provided his personal farm to host the tournament! Rather unusual, but all you need to host a pinball tournament is space and power, and the farm had enough of both.

The qualifications system was a lengthy (but good!) one, taking one and a half day of continious match play to complete. I started fine, parking on positions around 12-15 somewhere. Since positions 1-8 and 9-16 were seeded in later into the finals cup ladder, it was important to do good in the qualifications. After the first day I was at the 18th position, so I had to play good on day two, to get into the seeded bunch of players. But morning pinball is not my bag, so I fell down to the 24th position when the qualifications was over.

That meant I had to play all rounds of the ladder. I started up against fellow Swede Marcus Hugosson. He beat me at F-14, but then I won four games in a row. Next opponent was Krisztián Szalai, the Hungarian guy who got second at EPC the week before. It was a tough match, and it took nine games to determine the outcome, before I finally won on Road Show(!). The next match was against Neil Shatz, second at IFPA last year, second at PAPA 2005 and third after me at EPC Classics this year. I beat him playing good on Star Trek, Simpsons and Road Show (again!), and had the least lousy game on Star Gazer. 4-0!

The quarter finals was the first match on the third day, and my opponent now was noone else than Bowen Kerins, the reigning IFPA champion and multiple PAPA champion. And again, morning pinball is not my bag. I got about 50 million on Simpsons against Szalai and Shatz, and I got 2 million against Bowen. Bowen had an easy win, 4-0 without having to put any effort into it. I had really been looking forward to that Simpsons game, since we have both made fantastic scores on tournament mode Simpsons, but apparently that fantastic match wasn’t this match.

The last game was a tie breaker for the quarter finals losers. Once again I met Jim Belsito, and once again he beat me to it. But I beat Cayle George and Trent Augenstein, earning myself a sixth place in the tournament. I’m pleased with the outcome, even though I really wanted to give Bowen some more competition. I won $400 and a bottle of IFPA Jalapeño Sauce!

This time the return flight went fine, except for “poor” Jorian, who had to stay to play the final against Bowen. Bowen won once again, keeping the title for another year.

Now I’m home for a few weeks, before it’s time to go to PAPA to battle once again…

/P

Klippt från senaste spelarbetygen på Svenska Fans, dels för AIK och dels för Djurgården:

Spelarbetyg för MFF-AIK:

Betygskala 1-5
1 = underkänd
2 = godkänd
3 = bra
4 = mycket bra
5 = landslagsklass

Spelarbetyg för Gefle-Djurgården:

Betygsskala
1 - Usel
2 - Dålig
3 - Underkänd
4 - Godkänd
5 - Bra
6 - Mycket bra
7 – Landslagsklass

Jag antar att betygsskalorna speglar behoven rätt väl…

Last weekend I had some plans. Saturday, I was going to Lidköping to play Lidköping Pinball Masters Open. Monday, my beloved AIK played against GAIS in Gothenburg. In stead of driving 500 km back home and then 500 km more to Gothenburg, my plan was to bounce on Brygghuset in Fiskebäckskil (70 km north of Gothenburg) on Sunday, to eat some good food. They’ve got the best food in all of the west coast.

I had some stuff for my brother in Örebro, so on my way to Lidköping, when I was half an hour from Örebro, I called him and asked him to head for the highway. He told me he was already going to the highway, since he was loading his car for a vacation on the west coast. I met up with him at a rest stop, where he’d been waiting for less than a few minutes. He was going to Hafstens camping, 25 km from Fiskebäckskil. Same day, same time, almost the same destination.

I went playing pinball (got fifth), and stayed at a hotel for the night. The next day I went to the camping site, and spent some time with my brother and his kids. I invited them to dinner at Brygghuset, and we drove to Fiskebäckskil. The kids fished some crabs in the harbor before dinner, when someone suddenly yelled at us from a jetty. It was our old family home neighbor, who also happened to be a classmate of my brother back in elementary school.

Then my sister-in-law answered her phone. It was her parents. They were in Uddevalla. So we invited them to joins us for dinner. They accepted, took a cottage at the camping site and came to Fiskebäckskil. Instead of me eating alone, we ended up being seven people at the dinner!

I was just waiting for my mother to show up in Gothenburg, or some old friend of mine to be at the same gas station where I was filling my car, or something like that. I did meet up with some friends in Gothenburg, and of course I did meet a lot of friends at the football game, but those meet-ups where planned or at least anticipated.

A - Stockholm, B - Örebro, C - Lidköping, D - Hafsten, E - Fiskebäckskil, F - Uddevalla, G - Gothenburg

View Larger Map

And it’s not the first time…

I finally got my new teeth! After five years with blue teeth, and a month with plastic teeth that kept falling out (great party trick!), they finally implemented the final solution: Porcelain teeth that are meant to stay in forever. Well, I like lamb, so we’ll see about that, but at least they’re beautiful!

Beautiful teeth!

After becoming the Swedish Champion yesterday (in doubles), today I became the Swedish Champion once again, this time in Classics. Two Swedish Championships gold medals in the same amount of days! This means that I have proven to be better than 9 million other Sweden not only once, but twice.

In the singels, I got beaten by my doubles partner Mats Runsten in the 1/8 final. I won the first set, and was very close to pass him on the last ball of the second set, but got beaten by a doubtful tilt. Mats won the third set without any doubt at all, and later on he got in second place.

I’m a little disappointed over the second set there. I think I would have won against the guy that Mats meat in the next game, and then I would have been in the semi finals and in worst case got in fourth place. But on the other hand, how disappointed can I be with two gold medals on the shelf??

/P