BOARDS: How did you first meet and first work together in advertising?

SWEDES: The very first time we met we didn't even know we met. The second time was in an advertising school in Stockholm in 1988. After school we started at a small agency called Paradiset, where we worked together for six years maybe.

BOARDS: How did you land in Minneapolis?

SWEDES: A man named Bill Westbrook called on a rainy day and asked us if we wanted to move to Minneapolis. We said we didn't know because we had never thought about it. But we also said that we would like to think about it, and when we were done with that, we said yes.

BOARDS: This year must have been pretty crazy...or was it?

SWEDES: It depends on what you mean with crazy. Work-wise it has been the same as every year we have worked together. You go to work, you do your job as good as possible, you go home, eat, watch a little TV and go to bed. However, on the personal side it has gotten a little out of hand lately since we both have gotten really into connecting stuff, just for the heck of it, to see if it works. Seriously, we probably spent a month this summer trying to figure out if we could connect a fax machine with a regular microwave oven. Like the basic thing would be to set the timer on the microwave via the fax and that was a no-brainer. But it was harder to remove the paper tray from the fax into the microwave in order to deliver the actual fax inside the oven without altering the microwave too much. Because then it doesn't count.

BOARDS: How difficult was it to adapt to American "culture" and more specifically American ad culture?

SWEDES: Workwise, it wasn't really hard at all. The hard part was all the small, stupid personal details, like opening a bank account without a credit history, no driving license and no social security number. Or realizing that you don't have to be polite and listen every time AT&T calls you at home trying to sell you another long-distance phone line. You can just say "No thank you very much" and hang up and they are fine with that. By the way, that's another thing that is kind of weird. It takes Americans forever to finish a phone call. It's like a five-minute ritual you have to go through, like "Well, OK, so..." and then they start doing a re-cap of the entire conversation you just had. In Sweden we just say "Take it easy" and hang up.

BOARDS: What role does the absurd play in advertising?

SWEDES: The absurd doesn't belong in advertising. It should stay out. It has absolutely nothing to do with ads, or life or anything else. The absurd is a weird feeling, sense or thing that occurs when it shouldn't. It's completely unnecessary. Annoying. We would even go as far as suggesting that the word "absurd" itself be erased from every dictionary ever written. The word before "absurd" in Webster's is "Absinthe" and the word after is "Absolute" -- no one wouldn't even notice if it was taken away/erased! They would probably just go, "Absinthe, absolute... Oh, that's funny, two things about alcohol after each other," or something.

BOARDS: The "Buddy Lee Challenge" campaign integrated a lot of variables and with the email virals and Web sites especially, was mistaken by many for something other than advertising -- was this part of the plan?

SWEDES: Yes. Most of the things we do actually have a plan. Even the things we don't plan have a plan. It might sound weirder than it really is, but it is only a tribute to the fact that we all have reflexes and bones in our bodies that we can't control.

BOARDS: What accounts are you working on nowadays?

SWEDES: We are developing a completely unnecessary but addictive and friendly digital thing that you will be able to download onto your desktop in early 2001. We'll get back to you on that one, if we ever get done with it.