There's just one number, Barry. Read the link.
Your regular reminder that the A in RTFA stands for "article" everywhere else but at Unfogged.
That took me a lot longer to type out on my phone than it should have.
8 Who value institutional memory.
The OP sounds like Chatroulette only with fewer penises.
Only because it's not in a visual medium.
Nah, the heat's on there. No one will suspect the Swedes.
Speaking of Panamanians did anyone ever see the old SCTV with Joe Flaherty as Guy Caballero? One of the CCP1 episodes had a reference to him coming to Panama with all his Nazi money.
Speaking of Panamanians did anyone ever see the old SCTV with Joe Flaherty as Guy Caballero? One of the CCP1 episodes had a reference to him coming to Panama with all his Nazi money.
When will we get an email address?
Wiring it up to this would be a much better way of training an AI than putting it on Twitter. Just saying.
CCCP1 I meant. Pronounced "Three C P 1". One of the funniest extended bits ever.
8. Or, in your case, a peninsular person.
If I were a random Swede and I got woken up in the middle of the night by 'phone calls from random drunks in time zones 8 hours behind me, I think I would decide, in my phlegmatic, Swedish fashion. to campaign vigorously for the opposition at the next election.
Oh man calling this number all night and asking 400 people if they like to "suck on Swedish meatballs" is going to be so epic. This call is like totally free I think.
24: you don't get connected to literally any Swede in the country. They have to have volunteered for the programme and downloaded a special app. So I think that, if that started to happen, you'd just get a lot of Swedes unvolunteering.
In reality I think this is more of a "Call A Desperately Lonely Swede Who Needs To Hear The Sound Of A Human Voice So Badly That They Volunteered To Be Called Up At Any Time By Drunk Foreigners" programme.
"Hur hur hur. Hey, guys, it's ringing. Sshh!"
"Hello?"
"Do you like Swedish meatballs?" (stifled laughter)
"They remind me of the happy days before the death of my beloved wife, Ulla. She would often cook them. Now she lies dead in the graveyard at Vattahuttenorsk and I will never be happy again."
(pause)
"No, I do not know Björk. But I can introduce you to Agnetha or Anni-Frid if you wish."
"Anni-Frid is the one who got down with Benny, right?"
I didn't know any of Hill's Angels were from outside the U.K.
Sure, when I make fun of Scandinavian stereotypes, I'm "bad" and "disgusting," but nosflow's a big hero. The Swedish Bikini Team is real, damn you!
If somebody does call, ask what's wrong with eating the fish without soaking it in lye.
35: Did you read the article? She asked about Swedish fish!
I didn't realize that was about Lutfish.
I would have assumed it was the candy. Apparently they now have more colors than red and black, which are the only ones I remember, but I haven't been keeping an eye on them or anything. The black ones are salmiak flavored and are pretty amazing.
For Easter, they had little bags with fish and eggs.
Oh! You mean they're not the same thing?
Some eggs turn into fish, but not all.
41: Some eggs turn into fish
Some into birds
And some get eaten
And turn into poop.
She asked about Swedish fish!
In Sweden, they are just called "fish."
I was looking around for Swedish-language articles on the subject to see what they thought about it. One was just from the press release, but my second find was a Norwegian site.
Yes, it is the first country in the world with its own phone number. We are ahead of Norway too. We have to be the best in something, laughing STF General [Secretary] Magnus Ling.
The same guy also said the number will probably only operate until National Day on June 6th (the end of this tourism campaign), so don't delay.
Oh, and the local name for the campaign is a semi-pun: "Svara för Sverige", meaning "Answer for Sweden".
I would like to go see Sweden at some point. The pictures of the wilderness that one of our correspondents puts up in the pool look really great. But I'll probably never go because I hear that beer costs a whole bunch.
According to the internet, the average price of a beer in Sweden is 6 Euros or close to $7. That would mean that if I were in Sweden, it would be possible for me to spend more for beer than housing and still be able to function.
So tourists can appreciate the scenic splendor without blurred vision. Another triumph for social democracy!
re: 48
I'm surprised it's as low as that, tbh.
Average price for a beer in London is going to be around there. More, even.
Beer is cheaper in Sweden than in Australia, apparently (and probably better).
As an experiment, I'm trying to switch from Yuengling to Penn Pilsner. But it's $34 a case, which is too Swedish for me.
Can I pay more than a $1 a bottle for beer retail? Stay tuned and see.
52. I'm not sure. We're all familiar with the sort of cheap Australian beer that gets exported, but I wouldn't necessarily prejudge the whole country by that any more than I'd write off American beer on the strength of Bud Lite.
I'm going by the report of a philosopher currently in exile in Canberra, who claims that Australian beer is nearly uniformly crap. (And that the one (!) place in the city where you can get the exotic brew known as "porter" is constantly packed, for that reason.)
What hideous crime did he commit, that he had to flee so far?
58. He didn't flee, he was transported.
Bud Light is awful, but Budweiser isn't bad.
Alcohol (especially beer because classism) used to be considerably more expensive, but EU membership made it unviable. In the mid-aughts one of my younger cousins and his buddies took a ferry to Pomerania or some place like that and filled the car from top to bottom with beer cans.
While it's not recorded in any known criminal code, hoping to get a job in the academy in a locale to one's liking is a sort of crime against the order of things, and the order of things tends to ensure a seemly retribution, should it detect that one harbors that hope.
If you went to Sweden from Pittsburgh, you could buy a bit of beer taxfree at the airport.
According to people who know that kind of thing, apparently we have a good Philosophy program. I've never looked into it.
Pitt? Pitt has an excellent philosophy program.
62 has amply repaid my decision to stay up far to late. And with that, to bed!
61. The price of beer nevertheless seems to vary significantly within the EU. A colleague of Mrs y once went to Finland to engage in a three way cricket competition between an English club, a Finnish club and an Estonian one. Although the games were played in Helsinki, it was the Estonians who were charged with bringing a van load of beer to the festivities.
65: They don't hire many SAS programmers so what's the point.
Australia is just starting to get a craft beer scene, but it's definitely a decade or two behind the US. Most of the beer is not good.
There are no bad beers. Just beers you don't drink until you've already had a few.
Except for Christmas-flavored Scotch Ale. That about made me puke.
According to the internet, the average price of a beer in Sweden is 6 Euros or close to $7.
Also, if you go down to pick up some beer at the Systembolaget, the process is something ridiculous. You go in, take a number, wait around till your number is called. Then you ask the guy behind the counter for "sex öl" (six beers). And he gives them to you individually - because why would anybody sell them as a six pack?
Then you take them over to the hot blonde woman running the checkout, pay your 200 crowns, and get out.
a ferry to Pomerania
No, I don't want to hear your great idea for a bone broth truck, Larry! Crossfit sucks!
Someone brought this up on Das Buch der Gesichter and I brought up the "world's most isolated phone booth" and then as I was telling the story realized I couldn't remember why it went away. It became a thing because the internet ruins everything, but why was that a problem?
75: This was mentioned on...the Memory Palace, I think? Maybe 99 Percent Invisible? Too many people were driving there to answer the calls to it/take selfies/whatever, but it was on land that had been incorporated into a state or national park. The traffic was deemed unsustainable for the desert ecosystem.
I've lived in Australia, and the beer sucks and is overpriced. The wine doesn't suck but is also expensive compared to the US. It's not uncommon to find people charging $7 AUD for plastic cups of Toohey's.
I haven't been in Sweden since drinking age, but I remember my parents not ordering pizza because it was too expensive.
My family makes their own vodka anyways, so they don't have to worry about the price of beer.
So much work and family stuff this week, I haven't been to a bar since Sunday.
73: It doesn't work like that anymore, it's like any other store. They're even open on Saturdays.
Systembolag aren't like that any more. I think. I've just realised I spent a week there and never went into one. Wine is reasonably priced. Beer is no more than in London. Coffee though manages to be both overpriced and still almost all dreadful.
This brought to you by tOoo tired to be funny
I really want to call a Swede, but I'm afraid of dialling in at an awkward and inopportune time. So rude! and so uncomfortable... I'm already embarrassed: I doubt I will make the call.
Cheap Aussie beer is awful (sex in a canoe etc etc) but you can get some pretty decent beers there if you look. Coopers, for instance, is a perfectly drinkable mid-market brew and should be widely available, even in the wasteland of Canberra.
(PS Presidential because defending Aussie beer is, I am aware, pretty much treason.)
82: well, what time is it in Sweden now?
About 8:30 AM, it seems. A perfectly reasonable time to call.
because defending Aussie beer is, I am aware, pretty much treason.
Well, I was completely unaware, as usual, and had no idea that public opinion ran so strong against Aussie beer. Is this really a thing? And can cheap Aussie beer really be worse than, say, Budweiser Light?
My interpretation of 84.2 is that the author is from New Zealand.
You see, I assume that there's some kind of intense NZ-AUS beer rivalry.
Someone really should call a Swede and report back.
Are there any two nations in the world which are neighbours and do not steadfastly maintain the other's beer is absolute piss?
All disputes fade in comparison to the brutal Mongol-Kazakh koumis rivalry.
Real cheap Aussie beer is definitely worse than Bud Light. Maybe more honest and upfront, but it's definitely objectively terrible. Like, cheap Aussie beer exists in a world where VB is an upmarket nationwide brand, and beers like Swan/Emu/Carlton effing Draught are bog standard options.
Mind you, I lived with some American dudes once who thought Tassie Bitter (NZ, regional, super cheap) was pretty decent beer, after all it tasted like Budweiser, and didn't realise why we all fell about laughing.
Are there any two nations in the world which are neighbours and do not steadfastly maintain the other's beer is absolute piss?
France and Belgium?
Don't know if I'm representative, but when I'm home I will only drink Namibian, not S. African.
97. But that would be asymmetric. A lot (not all) of French beer is absolute piss, but the default stuff in Belgium is fine.
93: both Iraq and Iran do have brewing industries. (Non alcoholic only in Iran's case.)
Namibian, not S. African.
Yeah, Windhoek is one of my favorite African beers.
Coopers, for instance, is a perfectly drinkable mid-market brew and should be widely available, even in the wasteland of Canberra.
Or James Squire.
Australia is just starting to get a craft beer scene, but it's definitely a decade or two behind the US.
There weren't many microbreweries in Sydney until about ten years ago, because the oppressive liquor licensing laws in force until then made it difficult to open the sort of bar that would stock microbrews. Nowadays there is a microbrewery scene almost as fussy as in the US.
I stand by my claim. Yes Australia has some very nice breweries and tasty beer, but it's still 10-20 years behind the US. The state of Michigan, for example, has better beer than the country of Australia. (I didn't pick CA, WA, OR, or CO, because those would be laughable comparisons.). The US has pretty solid craft beer in 2000.
The laws here changed in the Carter administration (1980 or slightly before). So Australia is improving faster than the US did. I'm mostly just bitter that between 2014 and 2015, Cantillon stopped being easily available in Australia. I brought a suitcase to stock up, and it was useless.
97: yes, consequently, it would be a counterexample.
Ditto for Belgium and the Netherlands. Fancy beer in the Netherlands means it's from Belgium. Germany is the only neighbor of Belgium that refuses to acknowledge its beer superiority.
What about the US/Canada? I enjoy a keg of Molson with steamed clams as much as the next person, but US beer is pretty obviously superior.
Coopers is fine, and there's another Aussie beer I drank a lot whose name is escaping me completely that I liked, but in 2007 at least, the beer scene was pretty dire.
No one on this blog need call a Swede. It's what I spent all last week doing. I can supply on request a list of completely unhelpful Swedes who richly deserve calls from random blog strangers in the middle of the night.
Gaaah
105. Well Germany also has to contend with the Czech Rep. on its eastern border. But there is much good German beer, in my admittedly limited experience.
Quebec has some very very good beer. Also, unsurprisingly, Vancouver has a decent beer scene, but not at the level of Seattle or Portland.
Also, the OP reminded me of my favorite Finnish joke:
Pekka and Seppo are at a bar drinking vodka. Pekka raises his glass and says "cheers" and Seppo scowls at him, saying, "are we here to drink or talk?"
103: I don't doubt you're right, so "almost as fussy as in the US" was probably an overstatement. I just meant that things here are a lot better than they were even quite recently. (Not to mention 20 years ago - I still remember how taken I was with Anchor Steam during a trip to the US in the 90s.)
112: Not just a joke. I have a friend of Finnish descent who went back to the old country to visit relatives a few years ago, and one night the men gathered to drink. My friend is a fun, voluble guy, so he kept talking amid a growing sense of discontent until an uncle said, Look, are you going to talk or are you going to drink?
both Iraq and Iran do have brewing industries. (Non alcoholic only in Iran's case.)
Huh, I had no idea. I guess it makes sense; they did invent the stuff after all.
They took over an embassy and invented alcohol-free beer. We should just invade.
I don't think they invented alcohol-free beer. They did invent beer itself, though.
116: and they both have non-Muslim populations - Chaldean Christians, Zoroastrians, thst sort of thing.