The flood of memories that this clip gives me, is a tsunami, I tell you. A tsunami.

Two years ago today, my girlfriend and I were in Las Vegas. Some people don’t like Vegas, with the Eiffel Towers and fake Venices, but we had a great time. We played a little, shopped a lot, hung by the pool, and saw Cirque du Soleil’s “Love”.

But before we knew it, it was time for my wife and I to fly back home.

When you’re a kid, the world is pretty small. I remember having friends who I only met at school because they lived so far away: across the big road. My hood was about a block, and then the hockey rink up the hill.

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I’ve watched this maybe a dozen times, and I can’t get enough. Now I need to buy the book.

I saw my first game of the 2008-09 season today, at an arena that used to be my home rink, in the mid-1990s. Just before the game, they played David Lee Roth’s “Just Like Paradise” and while “this must be just like living in paradise/and I don’t wanna go home” is how I feel about hanging out at hockey rinks, I also wondered when that song was last played. Anywhere.

I’m sure Lucas would know.

FADE IN:

INT. A COFFEESHOP IN DOWNTOWN STOCKHOLM. A MAN IN A SUIT AND A WOMAN IN A SUMMER DRESS ARE TRYING TO DECIDE WHAT TO HAVE.

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Almost exactly ten years ago, I was in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in Canada on a business trip. I remember being at the hotel room, and reading a magazine that I, until five minutes ago, always thought was the Rolling Stone. (I was trying to find a photo of the cover of that particular issue and became very hesitant. It might have been another magazine, like Fortune. I guess it really doesn’t matter where I was reading the story, but this is just a bad habit of mine, bear with me).

What made this particular article so interesting that I still, ten years after, remember it? It was a story about the MTV trendsniffers. Sure, they probably had a better title in the real story, but you know what I mean: the people who work at the MTV and try to see where the youth culture is headed.

And … in 1998, they said that the next big trend was … niceness. And it made me so happy. I thought that there was something I could not only buy into, but also pioneer.

Unfortunately, I think the MTV people got it wrong then. Sure, the Backstreet Boys were nice boys, and Britney used to be so cute, but all in all, I think nice guys and girls have had to step aside. Too bad.

Not really. This is what do on vacation:

Staring out the window, chasing kids, and eating are not recorded by RescueTime.

There I was, holding hands with my two beautiful kids, my son and my daugther, hanging out at Finland’s biggest Prisma store, when I saw the two huge signs that guide the customers to the toy section.

To the left: “Boys’ toys”. To the right: “Girls’ toys.”

And all I wanted was some little buckets.

What year is this?

Back in May, when I was Quebec for the Worlds, one of the Canadian reporters asked Denis Grebeshkov, the Oilers defenseman, why the Finns hate the Russians so much.

He looked at the reporter and said, “Do they? I don’t think they do, isn’t it the Swedes the hate?”

And that’s been bugging me ever since.

Because both were right.