Thank you everybody and also some pictures of the accident.

So at about 8 in the morning the other day me and Chris got in a pretty bad accident in his Mustang riding home. I have tried to call everybody back who called me and texted me to feel better but I still want to really thank each and every one of you and I am sure I speak for Chris too in saying thanks so much for making us feel well taken care of and that people care. We've had plenty of phone calls and get betters and I can't thank you guys enough.

I got released from the hospital, my ribs are bruised, my back is sore and I ended up having my front tooth pierce through my bottom lip leaving a hole they needed to stitch up while the other tooth went up into my gum and they had to pull it instead. I hit my head on the dashboard then the airbag (I think) knocked me out completely. I've been told afterwards that smoke was coming out of the car and that Gina from the Horseshoe who was driving behind us was yelling at me to get out of the car and take off my seatbelt because my door was locked, and I think I somehow made it out and passed out on the grass. I have no recollection of anything after looking down at the CD player to change from song 12 to song 15 and then waking up in the ambulance. Fifteen stitches, two lost teeth and a lot of sore spots but I am thank god ok.

Big Chris ended up with a lot worse deal than I did as he broke his leg in a quite bad compound fracture on his left leg and also broke his foot. He is still in the hospital as of right now but he has gone through surgery and everything is well. I just got back from visiting him and they are hooking him up to the good painkillers to keep him going and hopefully he'll be released tomorrow. He never got knocked out and made it out of the car himself but he immediately realized his leg was broken. He has a lot of bruises and scratches on his arms and knuckles but otherwise he'll be fine as well. We're both quite lucky, even though it went the way it did.

Here's some pictures from the accident... I have no pictures of the car yet and I have no idea what it looks like but I hear it got totaled. As much as I know the hospital bills are going to totally suck especially for Big Chris and I'm afraid of it leaving permanent scarring in my face but I'm still not feeling depressed about it. I just feel thoroughly thankful that nothing worse happened to us since me or my best bud could be dead now but we're not, so I'm just trying to focus on the positives and not stress me out about how to handle the whole situation. Hence the smiling in the pictures, I was just really happy to be ok.

Tennis, jiu-jitsu and mexican food

Me and Chris had been playing a long game of tennis the other day when we played best two out of three sets. He still thinks he's landslides better than me, and I had him up 6-2 in the first set and the game was tied at 4-4 in the second set. So I'm up 1-0 in sets and it's tied 4-4. He says, "Swede, you wanna make a bet on this?"

I said, "dog I have you in a pretty good spot, why would you make a bet? Are you hustling me and have been slowplaying me all this fucking time?" (I remembered Jamies sudden burst of skill playing golf when money got involved)

He said, "You want the bet or not? $100 on this game."

I said fuck it, I'll take it. I win the first game and I'm up 5-4 and one game away from winning. The next game is cutthroat and when we're having our like fifth deuce and we're tied I hit a ball that just bounces off of the very top of the net and lands on the other side completely without him being able to reach it. He went on stone cold tilt and started yelling and screaming and he gave that game up and just smashed the next ball off the court and I won the game and the hundred.

He says, you want a rematch best two out of three sets? Now normally we don't even play more than three sets because neither of us have all that much stamina but since I had just won a match it felt like it was just fair for me to give him a chance to get even, so I agreed.

The first set I win 6-2 and I was playing good and feeling good about it. The second set he totally smokes me for a 6-1 victory. When we play whoever takes the lead usually gets so much momentum and plays so much better than it's landslide victories either way for the most part, kind of weird how it works out. We're both fucking exhausted but playing our hearts out just not wanting to lose. We start the third set, and he starts being up 2-0. Then we play a game which was key for me to win and we have something like eighteen deuces (ties) in a row when the score is 40-40 just going back and forth and I eventually win it to make the match 2-1 his favor instead of 3-0. It was huge. Then he goes on to just kill the following two games and he's up by 4-1 and I'm feeling like this is going to shit fast! I manage to come back and win the whole match 6-4 after taking five straight games and secured my $200! I might not need to play poker again as long as he's willing to gamble with me, just get up in the morning, give him his ass-whooping and I'll make $1400 a week. No problem, I can live off of that...

Just kidding, just have to needle him when I can. Then he dropped me off in the gym after that, I worked out some, came home and did laundry and I was so fucking tired and my arms were so sore after all the tennis plus the upper-body workout in the gym that I tried to pick up my laundry detergent and my arms completely gave out. It was pitiful. We shower up and shit and then we go have a good dinner at a mexican restaurant in Horn Lake, have a couple of beers and just sit and talk shit. It was a very good day, enjoyed it a lot. Played some poker after I got home, won about $500 playing for thirty minutes and then took a break. I'm still undecided whether I should play some more or just be happy with winning a nickel and just not playing anymore since I'm tired. But we'll see.

Then on Monday I think I'm going back to start training again. I used to do shootfighting for a while back in Sweden, a combination between submission wrestling and muay thai kickboxing and I enjoyed it. Then the school closed down and I never pursued it anymore. I talked to the instructor in Memphis about starting to train Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and/or Submission Wrestling a few days a week and I'm going to my first class on Monday. Hopefully I'll get back into that as I enjoyed that a lot back when I was doing it more actively, I need to gain weight anyway so working out even more will hopefully help that. I still haven't given you guys an update about our weightloss/weightgain bet but I promise that'll be an entry soon.

"Swede, I made trip tens!!!"

The other night I'm sitting at home in the apartment, just getting through playing tennis as usual and I sent Jess a text asking what they were doing. She said Karen, her sister, who has been telling me for a while now she wants to come down and play in Tunica were both about to go play poker at this place called High Pockets in Memphis. Karen has been playing for a while and she's asked me a couple times if I'd help her out a little bit for her first trip to the Horseshoe, and I said sure. Anyway, Jess said I should come down and play for a while and just hang out. I said I was tired as shit from playing all day but that I'd come down and play a couple of hours before I had to sleep.

So I get in there, and as I'm pulling into the parking lot, Jessica saw I was pulling in and comes running out and says something I thought I'd never hear her say, "Swede, this is fun! I busted two guys with trip tens, I had pocket tens and I flopped a ten and put them both out!"... what the fuck... trip tens, busting people... you're not supposed to say this kind of shit?

Then I walk into the place and the first thing I see is that Karen is all-in, flips up AK of clubs, makes the nuts when she makes a flush on the river and ships a good sized pot to her. I stopped for a moment and thought I entered some kind of twilight zone, that's just surreal. These two dingbats actually playing poker? What the fuck?

So I "buy in" to the game too which you pay $5 and you get to play an unlimited amount of super fast structured sit'n'gos and you tip the dealer a couple of bucks for dealing. Karen goes on to tell the table about how I play for a living and this and that and of course, nobody at the table believes it at first because I can just imagine how many people who actually say they play poker for a living and have no clue how to play but regardless I felt all kinds of pressure now! The first one I bust out early, but it was a funny hand with Jessica. The blinds are 1k/2k and she had 8k. I had about 12k... she limps in, I move in to try to pick up the pot with A9, a tight lady who actually knew what she was doing moves in behind me, the guy in the blind moves in and it's back on Jessica who is now facing three all-ins. I see the wheels start spinning in her head and she's figuring out what to do before making the call.

It's my A9 vs the ladys AK vs the blinds K7 and Jessicas 77. She's like in a super spot since we all have each others cards tied up but she still needs to dodge an ace, king or 9. It's still kind of rare that in a four way all-in there's only seven cards she needs to dodge. Anyhow an ace shows up on the turn and the old lady busts us all. Jessica immediately turns to me and goes, "Did I play that right? I didn't have enough to make it another round so I figured I was committed and I had to call."

I start bursting out laughing at this point, thinking... SINCE WHEN THE FUCK am I having a conversation about whether the hand was played right with Jessica?! It was the funniest shit, I swear.

The play at this place was fairly weak/tight with a lot of limping and a very fast blind structure but it was still a lot of fun. I had a good time. Just going there and playing with them makes me remember why I started to play poker too. Before things got serious and before I'd play a hand and analyze it for three days afterwards to figure out whether I played it right or not... they were playing purely for fun, and I even had fun. It won't be too long before Karen makes her first trip to Tunica. She actually had the betting down pretty good. The biggest problem besides figuring out what starting hands to play that beginners usually have in no-limit hold'em is figuring out the right amount to bet. I saw one time at 200/400 there were the blinds and a guy limped in, and she raises it to 1600. That's exactly the same amount I'd raise there too. I always open for three times the blind, if someone limps I add that to my raise and in this case that'd make it 1600. Just what she raised. Then on the flop she continuation bet 2500 which is also a very good sized bet. I see potential. It's going to be fun the first time I take her to the Goldstrike or Horseshoe. Jessica on the other hand, still seems a little nervous about the whole actually playing thing but before long I'm sure she'll be playing too! Haha, two more future poker degenerates caught hook, line and sinker!

A day spent watching football

If there's one thing I never thought I'd say when somebody called me and asked me what I was up to and I'd respond, "Oh just watching football."

I never thought that'd happen. I guess with the right motivation, everything can get interesting. Money is always good motivation. Anyway. I moved to the states a couple of years ago and I had no interest in football or baseball at all. I thought it was insanely boring to watch and I saw no point in it. Padball, as I used to call it, just seemed so mundane. You got a bunch of big fucking guys with a lot of anger management issues stacked in so many pads and so much protection that the michelin man himself would sue them for stealing his outfit and then they'd pick up a ball and run one way then the other way. A lot of sports seem fairly dumb when you really think about it but football seemed pointless to me. I've actually recently started getting into it, believe it or not.

There's always these questions I gotta ask Chris though. We've been watching games for the last five or so hours and he said ask whatever you need to know. I've gotten a little better at it than what I used to, so I can actually follow a god damn game now but then every now and then I'll go... "Hey, Chris... what's a shotgun?"

He'll sigh, then he's like "ok... a shotgun is... hang on." he picks up his cellphone, re-enacts the whole snap and tosses me the cellphone and he's like "that's a shotgun". I got the whole full scale renactment and all that shit. Then later on there was some amazing play and he's up on his feet yelling "THAT'S MY BOY, GET OFF MY FUCKING NUTS" all pumped as shit jumping on his feet and he looks over to me and I'm just kind of half watching thinking that's pretty neat. Then he stops, sighs and goes "man I wish you just understood football..." it was hilarious.

So my european ignorance aside it's been pretty fun. I played some online at the same time too as I haven't put in many hours at ALL at the tables. I picked up only a few hundred but it was nice, I haven't had many good wins recently so winning $480 or so wasn't bad at all. I also have been sleeping so good in my bed. I just never want to get out of bed. I wouldn't have gotten out of bed today as a matter of fact if it wasn't for our fucking neighbor just laying on the horn outside for a good four or five minutes. I heard Chris wake up and I heard him stumbling out, while the car-horn outside is still blowing and I contemplated getting up because he was hopefully about to walk out in his underwear alone and knock him the fuck out for laying on the horn for what was LITERALLY close to five minutes. But I decided not to get up. The bed was too comfortable. As it turns out he never knocked him out so that would've been quite disappointing anyway.

I have to admit I miss watching soccer and hockey though, especially hockey. I wish we lived closer to a good NHL team. I guess the closest teams here would be the Predators in Nashville, then I don't know what else that is close. Dallas? That's not very close though. Nashville has a couple of swedish stars so that's neat but still. That one NHL game I went up to Philadelphia to watch, the Flyers vs Maple Leafs was amazing so I'd love to go see another game. I'm kind of excited about seeing my first college football or baseball game too, as well as a major league or NFL game.

I'm going to just relax a little while then we're going to On The Rocks to play some pool, drink some beer, make Chris shoot some jaeger (apparently he had jaeger shots last night and threw up cheesesticks all morning) since we had a long conversation yesterday about shots and he said he refuses to drink jaeger. I go to bed at like 3am last night and he goes to on the rocks and some cute blonde talks him into shooting 7 shots of jaeger back to back to back. So much for never drinking jaeger huh motherfucker. You won't take some shots with me but if a huge breasted blonde offers then all of a sudden jaegers sound good. You fucking basta..... actually... I kind of see his point now that I think about it...

Why Rafael Nadal might have to watch out

There's a newcomer on the scene, he's tall, he's handsome, he's swedish and he's fucking horrible at tennis for right now but I'm working on the last part. Any type of tennis pro has to start somewhere, right?

Lately me and big Chris have been playing a lot of tennis, and when I say a lot I mean a lot. There was a while there we played every day. I had played maybe three or four matches of tennis in my entire life up until we started playing. I've always been good at sports in general so I figured I'd pick up on it quickly but I'm still semi-struggling with tennis. It's a fun challenge though and we are starting to get to the point where we're a bit more evenly matched so the grudge matches with some betting going on can start happening soon!

Chris is actually good at tennis, for a fat white boy the motherfucker can move. It's like Neo from the Matrix when he's moving around on the tennis court, one second he's on the baseline, the next he's up on the net, then he's on the far sideline returning a great forehand shot and the second after that he's collapsed on the ground reaching for his pack of smokes and screaming "Break, break!".

The last one has actually never happened but I could so totally envision it so it went in there anyway. My problem is serving. You know you toss the tennisball up with your left hand and try to hit it in the little square on the opposing side of the court. Sounds pretty simple to me. I toss the tennis ball up in the air and it's always interesting to see where the fuck I tossed it, half the time it lands infront of me, or behind me and I feel like I should be competing in the special olympics every time I try to serve. It's something inbetween swinging a baseball bat half-assedly and trying to swat mosquitos. If I just learned how to serve, I think I might turn pro. Seriously.

If there was any money in the "wannabe-tennis-pro" circuit me and Austin might have became millionaires already. There has been a group of us playing which usually consists of me, Big Chris, Austin, Donald, Steve and sometimes Andy. We take turn playing doubles and put some bets to make it more fun and it's been a blast. They're a fun group to hang out with. I can't wait until we take it onto the golf course although I might be the worst golfer of the bunch. Steve shoots close to par I believe, Austin shoots low to mid 80's, Chris I have no idea about but the way he talks about how he used to play makes me think he's fairly good. I shoot mid 90's, Donald I have no idea about and Andy I believe is drawing dead before we make it to the tee if the tennis game is any testament to his sports skills. I'm just kidding, he's actually gotten pretty good at tennis. He used to be horrible the first two or so times we went playing but he has actually improved a lot, I thought he was a lost cause when I first saw him bounce around the tennis court but he's gotten to the point where he definitely makes for a good game playing. I never thought tennis could be that much fun but it is very much so.

Viva la technologie informatique

In other words, thank god for internet. The cable guy came here yesterday and got our cable and our internet hooked up, at last. Me and Chris have both been bored to tears recently in our new apartment since there's literally nothing to do at all. We barely had any furniture up until recently and with no TV or a computer to mess around online with, it tends to get quite boring.

The apartment we have is nice though, two bedrooms, nice livingroom although not too big and it's on the second floor. I kinda like it. It's a lot cheaper than what I've been accustomed to paying the last six months so that'll help out as well.

I went shopping the other day to find myself a bed. Jessica and her sister helped me pick out a bedroom suite after we went to like six gazillion stores. Literally. I think I've looked at more furniture than I ever thought I would. See normally, I'd find something somewhere and that'd be it. I'd buy it and I'd be done and over with. This way you actually *gasp*... find what you really wanted. Not a terrible concept by any means. I bought some whole six-piece thingamajigg and a very nice and super comfortable mattress set for it and they deliver it tomorrow so no more sleeping on the couch (hooray, the people of Sweden rejoice!)

There was one funny part about the shopping though that still cracks me up, in two different stores the same scenario took place. So every time we walk into a store of course you get rushed by some salesperson, and they always ask you what you are looking for and what will suit your needs blah blah blah. So Jessicas sister Karen says we need a bedroom suite, with a nice comfortable bed. Sure enough, he starts showing us the beds. He asks if there was anything particular we needed... Jessica says, "Well it has to fit the three of us without being too cramped.", Karen goes, "He will have to sleep in the middle so we can hold onto him without falling off."

The sales guy kinda looks at us with an interested look, then one of the girls added, "Oh by the way we're sisters." and the "Holy shit" look appeared on the salesguy. Of course they were just fucking with him but my god I was laughing my ass off after we got out of the store.

So tomorrow between noon and 3pm is when the delivery is scheduled so I'll be busy trying to set all that shit up. Hopefully it's not like our lovely company IKEA whom you need an engineering degree to put together their equipment with but will be a little less straining. Next blog entry I'll write about our weightloss (weightgain for me) bet that is taking place so I'll write about that tomorrow. I'm off to eat something fattening with lots of dessert so see you soon.