I notoriously bad at following television series — I simply forget to follow them from one week to another — and in most cases I tend not too be particularly impressed with them either. In view of this, T. and I have discovered that buying the DVDs is a far better way for us to view the really good ones, and Mad Men is clearly one of those. We bought the first three seasons a while ago and will definitely buy the fourth season when it is released in late March this year. I can only join the large number of voices praising it. It is intelligent, quirky, and fun, and it paints a good picture of American society in general and advertising in particular in the 1960s. More television series like this one, please!

T.'s grandmother was kind enough to lend us the first six episodes of the Danish TV-series Matador, which is set in a small Danish town in the years between 1929 and 1947. Amazing actors, believable sceneries, interesting characters, and thought-provoking stories with the two families Skjern and Varnæs at the centre, have made Matador the most popular TV-series ever in Denmark and it has been shown in Sweden on several occasions as well, although I've never seen it before myself. I realize I should have. I really enjoy watching it — we've seen all six episodes in only two days — and I very much look forward to watching the remaining eighteen episodes as well.

Images from Filmzonen.

A huge congratulation to the newlyweds. May they live happily ever after just as princesses and princes do in the fairytales.

Image from Dagens Nyheter.

Yesterday, we bought a new television. We decided to buy the new KDL-40NX700 from Sony since we really liked its sharp image and the vivid colours. Right now we're having some lunch while watching the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Even though it's only a DVD it looks pretty great.

Gold again! This time it was rather unexpected and, since we were at a dinner, I actually didn't learn about it until it had already happened. It's great nonetheless. A huge congratulations to the quartet!

Image from Aftonbladet.

I'm happy to see that skiers Charlotte Kalla and Anna Haag have won Sweden's second silver medal (Anna Haag being the one who won the first silver medal as well). They did a terrific job in the women's team sprint, leading most of the competition, but were forced to see Germany getting ahead of them just before the finishing line. I look forward to seeing more of both Haag and Kalla in the future. Congratulations!

Image from Dagens Nyheter.

I'm not in Sweden at the moment, and busy doing a lot of other things, but I have nevertheless been amazed by the way Marcus Hellner, who won Sweden's gold medal number three, Johan Olsson, who won a bronze medal, and Anna Haag, who received a silver medal for her performance, have been skiing. It is truly wonderful to see the way these athletes work together to achieve their goal and to see them gain recognition for their hard work.

Images from Expressen.

This must be one of the most spectacular bronze medals I have ever seen. Yesterday we were all devastated seeing Anja Pärson crash in the most terrible way in the downhill competition. Battered and bruised, not even Anja herself was sure whether she would be able to compete in today's super-combined downhill and slalom. Only five minutes before the downhill competition started, she decided to take part after all and was soon on her way down the same slope where she fell yesterday. After this (successful) first run she was 1.41 seconds behind the leader, Lindsey Vonn. Again Anja wasn't sure if she would be able to continue the competition because of the pain, but she decided to do so and managed to produce a more than decent second run in the slalom, which resulted in a bronze medal (her sixth Olympic medal).

Maria Riesch won the gold medal, Julia Mancuso finished second, whereas Lindsey Vonn unfortunately wasn't able to finish today. Congratulations, Anja!

Image from SvD.

Biathlon skier Björn Ferry has just won Sweden's second gold medal in the biathlon pursuit in the Olympics in Vancouver. He was more than a minute behind French Vincent Jay to begin with and then he, slowly but surely, advanced to leadership position after the third shooting as the sun began to shine. Amazing achievement! Congratulations to Björn Ferry!

Image found at Dagens Nyheter.

The Olympics have just begun and amazingly talented 22-year-old crosscountry skier Charlotte Kalla has just won her own first gold medal in her first Olympic start ever. Sweden cheers with her.

Her team colleague, Anna Haag, did an amazing job as well and finished fourth, and I hope we will see more of her as well. A big congratulations to Charlotte and good luck in the future to both of them!

Image from Svenska Dagbladet.

This seems to be a really funny movie, at least from what I saw on the sneakpeak in The Guardian today. After his mother's death, a devout muslim finds out that he was adopted at the age of two weeks and that his birth family was Jewish, which leads to a major identity crisis as well as clashes between Jewish and Muslim culture. The main character is played by comedian Omid Djalili, his Jewish taxi driver co-worker is played by Richard Schiff (known from The West Wing), and the script has been written by Jewish atheist David Baddiel. All in all it seems to be a very entertaining, but also thought-provoking, movie and I really hope it will be possible to see it here in Scandinavia. Release date in the U.K.: April 9.

Image from The Infidel website.

Dr. House is quirky, intelligent, mean, controlling, gruffy, and somehow nice. At times. Hugh Laurie is an amazing actor, whom I've followed since his Black Adder days, and it is very interesting indeed to see him in this type of role.

Right now Swedish TV-channel 4+ is in the middle of a early evening, four times a week re-run of the very first episodes of House and it has been great to see how it all started (which I missed when the show was sent for the first time here in Sweden).

I usually don't like people who are like House, but I think the reason why (apart from the fact that it's fiction) I somehow like this character is because he has an overarching goal I can sympathize with: he wants to save lives. With a goal like that it's easy to be seen as a boring do-gooder, a naïve idealist who, like Don Quijote, might end up fighting windmills, and this would probably not result in good television. By being the way he is, House somehow fights anyone's notion of him as a genuinely good man. This show certainly has good script writers.

Image from Fanpop.

We just got back from having watched what I would say is the most amazing movie this year: James Cameron's Avatar. I loved everything about it — the story, the visual aspects, the technical side, the acting — all of it was amazing. We saw it in RealD 3D which actually added more to the experience than I had thought in advance. The amazing sceneries and colours, the movement of animals as well as human(oid)s, the violent fight scenes at the end seemed closer to me than I thought possible as I sat there in the movie theatre. It was simply breathtaking!

The image can be found at Slashfilm.com.

Another year has come and gone. Again it's time for Nobel Prize laureates to be rewarded for the work they have done. It's also time for beautiful dresses, carefully rehearsed performances, and (what looks like) wonderful food.

On a far more personal level it is also time to celebrate. This afternoon we received an e-mail stating that there will be an official enquiry into the work situation/environment at the department where I work. I'm so happy that this has finally become official... that the problems are really being acknowledged and, in time, hopefully also addressed properly. This makes it so much easier to talk about things that have happened, and hopefully it will make more and more people step forward as well. But all this lies in the future...

It's time to watch the 2009 laureates — it's great to see that five out of twelve are women! — receive their prizes in the beautifully decorated concert hall in Konserthuset. I think I'll just sit back and enjoy the ride...

The photo from 2005 of the decorated "Blue hall" in Stadshuset (the City hall) was borrowed from Wikipedia.

This image, although taken on a previous occasion, sums up what happened last night in Budapest in a very good way. The football game between Hungary and Sweden ended 1-2 after a far too exciting ending. Olof Mellberg, in the background, scored the first after only eight minutes and Zlatan Ibrahimovich managed to score Sweden's second goal in the very last seconds of the game. Everyone, except the Hungarians of course, were ecstatic.

I'm not a huge football fan myself, but it was indeed fun to see the teamwork and collaboration in yesterday's Swedish team. Let's hope they will continue to play like that. It would be great to be able to see two Scandinavian teams, Denmark and Sweden, qualify to the world championships next year.

I watched the movie on television last night and kept thinking about the narrow range of behaviour that is acceptable to men — back then in the 60's and 70's but perhaps also today.

It becomes very clear that the wives of Ennis Del Mar (the late Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) find it difficult to except the behaviour of their men. Their reasons for this seem to be slightly different, however. Del Mar's wife Alma (Michelle Williams) knows for certain that her husband has a sexual relationship with a man and her feelings of abandonment and loss are both understandable and expected. And it is a lonely burden she carries. Homosexuality (or in this case bisexuality) is clearly not something that ought to be talked about in the society in which they live. Nevertheless, and perhaps partly because of that, she does not leave Del Mar until she feels that he prioritizes his love for Twist higher than her and their two daughters. For Lureen (Anne Hathaway), Twist's wife, the most important thing seems to be that her husband is "a real man" in every respect. She does not seem to require closeness. She does not seem to need him financially. She seems to be married to him simply because she is supposed to be married. The only time in the movie when she clearly approves of his actions is when he tells her own father off, when he stands his ground as the "man of the house" in front of their son and her parents. This is also an incident that seems to put her father at ease, since he has had his doubts about the manliness of his son-in-law.

It is sad to see how all of the characters in the movie are stuck in rigid structures and modes of behaviour. Society does not approve of deviation, but at the same time it is very easy to become deviant since there are not many possible roles to choose between.

The image was found here.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Stockholm Syndrome
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Stockholm Syndrome Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

I guess it all speaks for itself, but I just have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed watching these clips.