ALL Moms are Awesome
Are they really?
I keep getting ads on my social media sites saying ALL moms are awesome. So I felt I should make my own:
Ingen reklam, tack
Today on our podcast on Sweden, we talk about postal delays, movie theaters re-opening and aqueducts. We also shine a spotlight on Håverud and learn that the Norwegians have been walking among us! Available wherever you get your podcasts, or at:
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/yytplhnk
iTunes: https://tinyurl.com/y4lap5mh
Main site: https://iceandsnow.se/podcast/68-ingen-reklam-tack/
Let’s go to the movies!
Apparently, some theaters are open again in Stockholm! Not very many, but a few. There are maybe about 10 movies playing in the whole city, but one of them is “Tenet”, so we had to check it out.
In Sweden, you make reservations online and choose your seat before you go the movies. At this theater, you could only choose every other row. The ones in-between were blocked off. Once you made your reservation, the seats beside you were blocked – 2 to the left and 2 to the right (you can sit together on the same reservation, it just blocks STRANGERS!).
I thought this was a good solution, not to mention I didn’t have to deal with annoying people whispering, eating and checking their phones since they were all pretty far away from me.
As for “Tenet”…. I’ll have to see it at least 2 more times before I get the whole thing, much like every Christopher Nolan movie. 🙂
How to make an Ewok
Step 1: Get very furry cat.
Step 2: Make it reach for toy in the air.
Step 3: Success!
Meet Magneto! Or… not.
I saw this ad today for an event coming up in Stockholm. I thought “oh! I can meet Ian McKellen!”
But no. I read it wrong.
I feel like this company is going to have a bunch of disappointed X-Men fans showing up at their business event.
How to defeat your kids on YouTube
The kids and I have been having a contest on for who can create the most watched video on YouTube. I need to crush them with my amazing video that I spent a whole 10 minutes making, so why not give it a view? It’s so very informative!
Last-minute gift ideas?
For the person who has everything… Well, I bet they don’t have THIS!
A passion for chainsaws
These job ads get more specific every day. Today’s copywriting ad states that they would prefer an applicant who is really into chainsaws.
If I come dressed as this guy, do you think I’ll get the job?
Stakeholders
Every time I read a job ad that includes any mention of “stakeholders,” I just think of an angry mob chasing Dracula and then I forget what the job was about.
Bathroom decoration
My son ran out of a restaurant bathroom in Italy very frightened.
“I can’t go! This man with a huge head keeps staring at me!”
So of course I had to check it out.
He was right.
Hulk’s pants
Dinner time is an important meal for the whole family to spend together. We talk, learn about each other’s day, and discuss important topics of concern to us all.
The other day, that topic was the Incredible Hulk’s pants and superhero clothes in general.
So when Bruce Banner changes into the Incredible Hulk, all his clothes shred off except for his pants. Stan Lee and Marvel have tried to explain this as a special fiber that allows the pants to stretch, but our family has other questions:
- Why do the pants tear at the ankles but not the upper thighs?
- Why doesn’t the butt seam break apart like it does on normal people’s pants when they wear out?
- How many pairs of these pants does he own and how much do they cost, because obviously he has to replace them every time he changes back?
This also leads to questions about another superhero:
- Superman wears his costume under his clothes. Where’s the cape tucked in?
- Superman removes his suit (usually in a phone booth) to expose his supersuit and fly off. What happens to his discarded business suit? People steal that right? What would you do if you found a nice suit crumpled up in a phone booth? How many suits does he have? A reporter doesn’t make that much money.
That’s as far as we got because then we were done eating dinner, but I feel this topic could easily be explored further.
Your guide to Venice (or, yes, I’m still bored)
I’ve made a family fun guide to Venice in case anyone’s looking to convince their family that this is the place to go!
Brothers… all the same
My youngest son was talking about how he wishes we could hurry and invent teleportation.
“We’d already have it if it weren’t for the Marx Brothers.”
I thought about this for a while, but could remember no scenes relating to teleportation in any Marx Brothers movies.
I asked, “How did the Marx Brothers ruin our chances at teleportation?”
“Because they invented the airplane, so everyone focused on that instead!”
“Um, you mean the Wright Brothers.”
Christmas in Sweden – Advent Calendar
Every family has at least one Advent Calendar, usually with bits of chocolate on the inside. There is also a tv calendar and a radio calendar.
The Christmas Calendar (Julkalendern), which dates back to the 1960s, is an annual TV series airing one episode a day in 10 minute increments. Each year it’s a different story.
There is also a radio calendar with a different Christmas story than the television, airing a 10-minute episode each day.
The TV calendar this year is a story set in the early 1900s about a girl and a professor who build a hot air balloon to travel to find the land of Santa Claus.
The radio calendar story this year is about a girl who shakes a snow globe and is taken to a magical land.
We listen to the radio calendar every morning at breakfast, and watch the television calendar every evening.
It’s a good way to practice my Swedish, though many years the stories take place in the 1800s to early 1900s, so I may have picked up a few unused words here and there.
Movies
Took the kids to the movies yesterday to see “Fantastic Beasts” and they were literally on the edge of their seats. In fact, I had to push my youngest back three times because he sat so far up that he was basically breathing on the neck of the guy on the row in front of him. At least he had nice popcorn breath.
I have a friend who pops her own popcorn and brings it to the movies. I used to think that was strange and thought “well I want my popcorn warm,” but realized yesterday that my 35 SEK ($5) box of popcorn actually cools off in about two minutes, so I think she’s onto something there. Plus, if I start making my own popcorn at home, I can put bacon salt on it. I could also bring one of those electronic warming things I keep in my pocket on cold days and set it under the popcorn bag.
I already save the 3D glasses each time so I don’t have to pay the fee for the new ones. Now I figured out the popcorn. I think all that’s left is special non-stick shoe covering and I’ll have conqured the movie theater.
Customs video FAIL
As usual, when we arrived in the U.S. last month, we were subjected to a special video that re-played every three minutes while we waited in the long line at immigration/customs.
At least this year there was a new video. I was really getting tired of listening to super-happy people repeating, “I am America…… I am America…. I am America” over and over. I kept thinking, “Where’s the angry lady that shouts at me when I don’t have correct change for the toll? Isn’t SHE America? And where’s the guy who cut me off and stole my parking space last year in Texas? Isn’t HE also America? I don’t see these people in the video.”
But anyway, this year’s video for customs was a little instructional piece for stupid people and children explaining why we have to stand in an hour long line to enter the country. In one part of the video, a little girl asks a customs official, “Why are you taking my mommy’s fingerprints?” and the man replies, “I’m making sure she really IS your mommy and not someone PRETENDING to be your mommy.”
What kind of psychological damage is that customs offical subjecting that little girl to? “My mommy may not be my mommy but someone PRETENDING to be my mommy?! AHHHHH!!!!!”
Another fail for the customs video writers. My suggestion is simply to run some Tom & Jerry cartoons like they used to do at Six Flags Amusement Parks while I waited in line. Trust me, I get just as much useful information from that as I do from a customs video.
12 Angry Birds
My youngest son was extremely excited yesterday when looking over our movie list and seeing that we had “12 Angry Men.” He thought it was a sequel to the Angry Birds movie.
Cancellation requirements
I bought some tickets for a show tonight. I had the option of buying cancellation insurance. I decided to look through the requirements to see if anything seemed reasonable. I declined the insurance – mainly since they didn’t cover anything nuclear or radioactive. I mean, c’mon! Doesn’t someone in that situation DESERVE a refund?
Also, there must be a lot of angry customers arguing about supersonic speed damages.
Actual quote from cancellation insurance page:
“We will not pay any consequence of war, invasion, acts of foreign enemies, hostilities (whether war be declared or not), civil war, rebellion, revolutions, insurrection, military or usurped power, riot, civil commotion, strikes, lockout, terrorism, malicious intent or vandalism, confiscation or nationalisation of or requisition or destruction of or damage to property by or under the order of any government or public or local authority. We will not pay any loss caused directly or indirectly by:
- ionising radiations or contamination by radioactivity from nuclear fuel or from any nuclear waste from the combustion of nuclear fuel;
- the radioactive toxic explosive or other hazardous properties of any explosive nuclear assembly or nuclear component thereof.
We will not pay any loss caused directly or indirectly by damage or destruction directly occasioned by pressure waves caused by aircraft or other aerial devices travelling at sonic or supersonic speeds.”
Dolomite!
My family and I are spending a week in Italy near the Dolomites. Sadly, 2 are under age 12 and the other is Swedish, so they will not understand my numerous Dolomite jokes.
I have a (5th grade) dream…
My son, very concerned that we have recently become stuck with a low-selection Swedish Netflix, wrote, “My dream is that we get American Netflix back.”
Priorities.
Life in the land of the ice and snow 