Hi Tech, Lo Tech, NoTek

My apologies to the city of Nokia, because there are many good people living in there, but I just can't stop disliking it. Here's something to prove my point. Or not. Either way, Nokia keeps staying in the headlines in negative aspects.

Today I read that the Nokia health center (Nokian terveyskeskus aka NoTek) has been a center of attention once again. This time an old man has been killed by another old man. What is it with NoTek? It really sounds like a deadly surroundings.

It was 1,5 years ago, when Nokia was introduced to the world by poop water. At least I heard about it on the radio, P1 channel news in Stockholm. Some idiot had connected waste water pipes to drinking water pipes which caused sickness to the most of the city. Eventually some even died. NoTek couldn't handle the urgent need of care in time. And there were a lot of people who have the power in Nokia saying that it isn't that bad. Hell, people were dying, those powers that be should have taken some responsibility over what happened.

After the poop incident, there was a female nurse who had poisoned many patients with insulin. At least she is claimed to have done so. The nurse denies everything. Now several bodies have been digged up to see if they had been poisoned as well. Her trial is ongoing at the moment.

All these tragedies have dealt with old, sick people. We shouldn't belittle lives of the oldies. That's how we all end up, if we get lucky. It's somehow weird to read about these happenings, because all I have met in NoTek has been smiling faces and caring people. How could I suspect any hanky-panky? Any foul play by over-stressed, underpaid, tired nurses and doctors with problems both at home and at work? A smile is only skin-deep, alas.

Oh yes, and it isn't more than weeks ago when someone found toxic wasteland under a kindergarten playground in Nokia. It was the same nursery that had been closed due to mould and damp problems all over the building. And the same one that our kid was attending until she was 5. That's four years of toxic pre-teenage wasteland, if you will.

I'd have a lot of unpleasant memories about the city of Nokia. Maybe I'll save you from them. Or just save it for a rainy day. So let's take a rain check, á la Smek.

Funny hour

I used to invent Friday jokes in Stockholm for our team in Kista. In my current project humour has been told to zip it, which is sad. Funny and even a bit silly things make the day go faster and the spirits up. Now it's mostly boring working and sagging. Here's the latest fruit of my so-called jokes:

Two guys eating at a restaurant.
Vegetarian: Meat is murder, don't you know it?
Meatball: Well, as long as it won't take me to the jail it's ok by me.
Vegetarian: But... you eat pig. And you are what you eat.
Meatball: That's exactly why I don't eat vegetables!

Recognize any of these cars? Correct and also incorrect answers can be sent to me as a comment. Well, that's about it for today. See if I continue with these comical outbursts later on.

That's equal!

We had an annual day of equality last week in Finland. The day was also Minna Canth's day [prounounced like 'cunt', nomen est omen, LOL, ...not!]. She was a strong person in the 19th century when it comes to female rights. As this is indicating, it's women's equality in question. Not a man's.

Yes, I have blogged about this before, but now I have new goodies in the pipeline. As this recession has progressed, it was reported that 30000 men were sacked alone in January in Finland. And only 3000 women. What do you say about that? Not that equal to me. Women protest here all the time that men get better salary and better positions. What about now? It's quiet like in a climate-change activist camp (-16 degrees this morning by the way).

Another ongoing topic in equality has been profession naming convention. Women don't like to be called men. Fireman should be firewoman or a fireperson. There was a talk about "herr gårman" in Sweden some time ago. It meant the walking man in a traffic sign near zebra crossings (suojatien merkki). It included an educational wordplay in it: "här går man", i.e. "here one should walk" or something. "man" is a passive subject, like 'one' in English, which means unluckily also "a man" - not "man" (if you don't know the difference between 'man' and 'a man', ask Neil Armstrong, LOL!) in Swedish.

That wordplay was just a foreplay to the following. What about "gärningsman" - a criminal with an innuendo to male gender? I see that word almost every time I read Swedish papers. Even on the radio, even in Finland! Some consistency, please!

The same kind of incident happened some years ago in the city of Nokia. "Hämärämies" is basically a direct translation of "gärningsman". It means a criminal with that now infamous "mies/man/a man" ending. I saw a note in a carpet weaving house in Nokia saying: "Pitäkää ovi kiinni hämärämiesten takia!" (Please keep the door closed because of male criminals!) I was offended deeply. What would a man steal from a house full of rag rugs? What would a man do there in the first place? Don't ask what I was doing there, LOL! Weaving carpets...not! I was there just getting pissed off, reading irritating criminal warning signs. Hell, I should have left the door open... for female criminals - that wasn't forbidden. Actually, I was waiting for my wife to finish her rug (no puns included). That's one of the places I don't recommend for any male - criminal or not!

Out to lunch - anybody home?

At the customer's where I work now, there are restaurants that have quite a strange food policy. Well, strange enough to blog about.

The price of a meal increased to 5,50 € this January. We have a deal with our customer and taxman, otherwise it would cost 7,95 €, which is close to Stockholm prices.

If you have a soup, it'll cost you 4,20 €. If you take a soup with big salad and dessert, the price is 5,50 €, i.e. the same as the basic meal. That's alright, and I have tried that out succesfully sometimes.

BUT(T)... If you are going to have only big salad, it will cost you 5,60 €! In other words, it's 10 cents more expensive than big salad with soup and dessert! That's crazy.

So, if you want to have a big salad a bit cheaper, you can take the soup and the dessert with it and throw them in a garbage can. Does that sound sane to you?

Practical Swedish in practice (and other assorted lingual cases)

Every language has its own special feature. What I find interesting, is the lack of English translation in certain words. For example in Swedish, I really enjoy some very practical words like 'hinna' (ehtiä), 'räcka' (riittää) and 'slippa' (välttyä) which are hard to translate into English using only one word. As you can see the Finnish equivalents in brackets, we face the same problems in English translation. Because Sweden and Finland have shared a large piece of history together (and still do in some form), we have a fitting one-word translation to most of the words in our vocabularies.

hinna - to have time to do something

räcka - to be enough

slippa - to avoid doing something

There's a whole lot more example words out there I'm sure, but my limited ability of understanding Swedish and other excuses prevent me from listing them all.

One of my favorite words in Swedish is 'självklart' (tietysti/of course; Finland-Swedish use 'förstås' instead, but I never heard anyone use that in Stockholm), another being 'höjdare' (isokenkäinen, kohokohta/boss, climax). I especially like the term "Det var ingen höjdare", when the food wasn't that good. I also like 'neka' (kieltää/deny) which probabaly comes from 'tacka nej'. At least that's how I remember what it means.

Now that I think of it, there are no English favorite words for me at the moment. Well, maybe 'sporadic' and 'respectively', but as I try to avoid repeating myself; I don't use them any more often than other words. That's my goal anyway.

Also two words, 'about' and 'around' have possessed me. In some context they mean the same - for example 'mess around' vs. 'mess about', 'fiddle around' vs. 'fiddle about' and 'turn around' vs. 'turn about'. I have noticed that the British use 'about' much more often. Maybe it's just another US/UK difference?

Another nice word is 'fortnight'. It used to be in high school graduation aural exams every year. It means 14 nights i.e. two weeks, and many fell for it. Year after year, but not me. That's why I still like that word.

In Finnish, two words have recently entered my active vocabulary: 'taputeltu' (finished) and 'tunteroinen' (about/around one hour). These can't be found in any official dictionaries I suppose, but the feel they give me is positive. And that's what counts.

I heard from an ex-team member that my English has improved since I started blogging in BlogSpot. That's really weird. I asssumed that it would have gone down a bit, because let's face it, I don't need that much English in Finland. Also my Swedish has gone down rapidly. I have considered of creating a sibling blog in Swedish, but I'm not convinced if I had the time and the strength for it. And the vocabulary...

This blog has 31,5 % of Finnish readers and the amount is increasing - approaching the magical 50 % limit. The Swede count is slightly decreasing, but it's still by far the greatest bunch. I miss a lot of Finnish wordplays by writing this in English. Then again, I get to have a conversation with the whole world, if you will. 42 countries can't be THAT wrong.

Canard in a coal mine fields of gold (get this, honky)

This is quite interesting news. They are going to launch a new crown (krona/kruunu) this year to reminisce happenings 200 years ago. I don't know whether it's a conincidence or not, but anyway the new coin will have references to Finland on the other side of it. The symbolic sea between Sweden and Finland is there with a nice phrase around it:"The wonderful story about the land on the other side of the sea". Check the links, if you will (Swedish and Finnish).

The Swedes are against the idea of celebrating their defeat 200 years ago. On the other hand, they have made art of failures: one of them lies in Vasa museum, LOL! But seriously, why would they care? The arrogant style the Swedes possess is still there, and it was there even when Sweden lost Finland to Russia. If you like history, you know that there was a Finn who found Swedish hybris intolerable and thus dedicated his life to separate Finland from Sweden. He played a big part in 1809 when it finally happened. We can always speculate, was it 'out of the frying pan, into the fire' type of destiny for Finland. Hell, if the Swedes still don't really like the Finns (as the comments reveal in DN), why hold the grudge in the first place? One should think they were in fact happy to get rid of us rednecks.

Ok, this whole thing may be an April fool joke, but what if it isn't? At least it has gathered a lot of attention already. And the Finnish press fell for it, hook line and sinker. I wish it were true just the same. Then I could count on the fact that the Swedes would choose euro for their currency as soon as possible. Now that their own precious crown had been spoilt. Such sensitive a nation - I hope.

True Hell's Kitchen (DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!)

I was joking with Amig-J once about an extreme restaurant. In this crazy old world even that might be a success. The food in The Fear Factor would be chicken feed compared to this. Kick out Ramsey, bring in The Amigos. Amig-J has done some experimenting with garlic, I know how to use microwave oven plus barbeque sausages and Amig-O's mother is good at preparing food. Thus we'd make an excellently capable team. No Michelin stars expected however...

We could serve mad-cow steaks from Germany, Indonesian bird-flu duck and Finnish salmonella eggs. To drink we could serve Chinese milk powder drinks, bottled poop water from Finland (legacy of Nokia). From the US, we could get gene-manipulated food of several kind. Sweden could provide us ICA's re-stamped meet, fish and shrimps. Maybe boiled alive pigs too for a seasonal specialty.

For vegetarians we could serve for example cassava, cooked only for 10 minutes. Then false morel (korvasieni/murkla) that has been cooked only once could be on the menu. And blowfish, wrongly cooked of course. Also leaves of potato and rhubarb might do the trick. And don't forget the mushrooms that have been picked near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. They could be used as lighting too, LOL!

For alcohol drinkers we'd serve spirit bought in Tallinn, Estonia, from a man in a dark alley. For dessert Italian grappa and Greek ouzo might be ordered with Swedish automatic machine coffee. Then again, Amig-J makes competent coffee himself too. And blue cheese has been replaced with cheese that has true mould on it. For children we'd have only Swedish weeners and potato salad, that shoud teach them, LOL!

When we brought the menu to a customer, we'd require him/her to sign an agreement in which we would be released from all responsibility of consequences. We could get all this stuff with a huge discount, maybe even free sometimes, and sell it at price tenfold. Hell, this could be a real success story! From rags to riches, and from riches to prison... If you want, you can suggest other great dishes for our imaginary restaurant. You might get a piece of our action, including piece of our sentence! (all of this was TIC - don't get upset, you fools who didn't realize it by yourselves!)

Swedish chef does Miss Piggy

Recently I saw some weird Asian cooking videos (thanks, buddies, I really appreciate it). They prepared snake and fish which were still moving and obviously not quite dead yet. If the food doesn't move, the chef has failed. I don't know what's the point of it - does it taste better when it's really 'fresh'? Or is it just another way of entertaining rich people who want something special?

Now I read that they have been cooking alive pigs in Sweden. Not just once but on several occasions. They claim to have been too busy to notice. Or to care.

I have always been asking myself: why do crawfishes get boiled alive? Isn't that torture? Where goes the line when an animal can or can't be cooked alive? Who gets to decide? Aren't animals equal in front of humans? Nope.

Not only a Northern Song

We had a party organized by our customer. They used to be best parties I have attended. This time it wasn't that magical a mystery tour.

The recreation event was held near Teisko, which is a large area covering the Northern part of Tampere. The cottage located near a lake (Näsijärvi would be my guess) with a specialty of 'savusauna' (rökbastu, smoke sauna) and a hole in the ice.

When I drove there with Amig-J, we saw a car rolled upside down. There were policemen all around and the traffic was slowing down. Out of curiosity, Amig-J grabbed his mobile and found out immediately details about the crash that had happened some 30 minutes ago. Now isn't that IT in action or what?

As usual, we were the first ones to arrive. Finally two bus loads of people got there and the games could begin. We were divided into several groups and we had some sport and intelligence tasks to solve. As a liner note or something, I wonder how many would have solved that first-class math task I posted recently..?

It wasn't easy to put together the devil's fist (pirunnyrkki, how to assemble it here), a six-piece puzzle. It was a bit embarrassing for me not to be able to do it, because I used to have one... well, 30 years ago. I had no clue whatsoever how to construct that puzzle. Some groups were more succesful than us - but luckily not all.

Then we had a combined ski and kick sledge competition. Both instruments were custom-made for tandem use. I didn't want to lead, so I took the last position on 5-person skis. When we moved to the start line, I couldn't tell when the first one stopped moving. That's why I fell on my knee, my head on a female colleague's arse. In spite of seemingly funny incident I really hurt my knee. It's still sore. Well, we lost that one too.

I was delighted to hear that men got to start having sauna. It was totally unheard of. I was the first to go there. In Finland, I'm a lousy sauna bather. In Sweden, I was the king, LOL! Well, the same applies to drinking. I had plans to swim in the air hole, but after watering my legs in the halfway I returned. I had failed in my mission. Miserably.

Drinks were not to run out in that party. I kicked myself slightly for taking the car with me, but then again the way back home was fast and cheap. And there was no hangover the day after. My Swedish colleagues should have seen it: this is how it looks like when people drink a lot. Both men and women. Well, I'm not saying you should follow bad example. I think that only one Swedish person in our team in Kista could have been qualified in the Finnish group. My friend S., you know who you are! That's not a finest merit you can get, but still.

I got tired of drunken people singing karaoke (a lot of ABBA there) out of tune. There was no other type of entertainment left for the evening, so I decided I might as well leave. I had promised to drive Amig-J home. He was having way too much fun to leave, so I left him there. The bus would come to fetch the crowd later.

This was probably my last party at the customer's. Free alcohol has ceased to attract me a long time ago. Even if there's cider and wine available. Maybe I feel too comfortable at home to stay out at nights. And, yes, I feel too old for these parties anyway. I have much more fun when I'm sober - but not among drunken people...

The Riddle

I'm back with the first grade math. It doesn't cease to amaze me. Yesterday I was helping out our daughter. Maybe I shouldn't, but these tasks do need extra help. I can't possibly expect any 7-year-old to manage alone with this kind of challenges.

Let's try with you! In her math book, items were two differently decorated Easter eggs, but I'm using plain x and y here.

X + Y = 15
Y - X = 3

X = ?
Y = ?

Like the triangle puzzle in my earlier post, kids are supposed to crack it by trying out different combinations. What does it teach? Not much. I couldn't tell our child that you have to use algebra knowledge to solve it. We had this kind of tasks maybe in the 9th grade or something. With two variables (x and y). It won't take long that I am no longer able to help her in mathematics, I'm afraid. Here's how it should have been done, without leaning on a lucky guess:

X + Y = 15
Y - X = 3

X + Y = 15
X = Y - 3

(Y - 3) + Y = 15
X = Y - 3

2Y = 18
X = Y - 3

Y = 9
X = 6

What would have happened, if our daughter had this kind of algebra calculation in her book? Would it have helped the teacher realize how complicated the task really is? Most likely I would have gotten a reminder not to confuse the young mind again...

Any comments on someone who's just as stupefied are welcomed by me. What I've read, Hairy isn't into math too much but does a great calculating from time to time, LOL! Mogli, was it like this when you were young(er)?

After Eighties, a mint meltdown and a vanilla erection :)

It's somehow strange how taste for something may vary whereas other things keep tasting good or bad all the time. This event happened around 1980. The purpose of mentioning the year is to point out how long my taste has stayed unchanged. When it comes to vanilla and mint, that is.

It was a bit earlier, when I was licking a mint ice-cream cone. It was a novelty those days to have something else than vanilla-strawberry-chocolate ice-cream flavors. Everything new was appreciated. But mint was already everywhere in chocolates (After Eight), chewing gums and especially tooth pastes, which I didn't consume as much as I should have. Anyway, I suddenly - while still licking the mint cone - realized that I really didn't even like mint! I didn't dislike it either, but it was worth nothing compared to the other, old tastes. It wasn't bad, but I started to avoid mint after that incident and have done so succesfully ever after. Mints belong to toilets, if you ask me.

Soft ice (pehmis, mjukglass) came to Finland, well at least to Tampere area about 30 years ago. It was an overnight succes. Only vanilla was available in the beginning. Soon came chocolate and strawberry. I started to have those mixes too like everyone else. Then I realized that, hell, the vanilla part is what I really like. Why not take 100 % of vanilla instead of 50? I had found my taste.

At first it was only soft ice. Later I started to add vanilla sugar to cocoa, pancakes, milkshakes etc. When it comes to normal ice-cream, vanilla alone is not enough, but in soft ice it still is. It's incredible that my wife shares my taste for vanilla. Even today, as I buy vanilla soft ice, the shop assistant almost always says: "We have other flavors here too, you know." (It happened in Sweden as well) To me, vanilla is the real thing and it keeps being hard for someone else to accept. In this tolerant world, LOL!

Birth of the kul

It's pretty amazing, although not totally unexpected, that the bureaucracy of my moving back to Finland hasn't gone too smoothly. It wasn't easy (but it sure was hard enough) to get my social security back to work in Finland. Actually, it was just plain slow.

To make it perfectly well, I visited Skatteverket, Södermalm, in person last December (I think I blogged about it too in my Moved To Sweden blog). I filled the form and gave it to a tax official. Everything seemed to be in order.

In February I had had my car trouble organized, so I contacted Skatteverket and Renault insurance company. Mainly to get some of my money back. I was forced to pay some bills in advance while still in Sweden and I could get most of them back as soon as I and my car were registered in Finland.

I also wanted to get my tax pre-calculation paper from last year's income here. I contacted the Swedish tax office. Skatteverket replied soon as usual. They said that I was still living in Sweden according to their books. What?

I replied (it's good to write in Swedish, if you want fast service) and asked them to check again. They did, or at least claim they did. No results. They told me it would be easier for all if I just filled in the form again and sent it to them. I did that last week and now I'm still waiting. Made a query just moments ago.

What makes me mad and frustrated, is that all my mail has been delivered to my old Solna address. That's how it seems. And I thought I was careful and left no chance for malfunction. What can we learn from this example? No matter how you do it, something will fuck it up anyway. Or someone. Now how does that sound for a motto?

Smek The Joker

Another joke I invented this week. Prepare for not laughing.

Here's the greatest impersonator doing Frank Sinatra!

[impersonator closes his eyes and stands still. The announcer is slightly confused but continues:]

..eh, and now the impersonator is doing Elvis Presley!

[impersonator keeps standing still, eyes closed. Announcer gets a bit annoyed but goes on:]

Wasn't that...eh, and finally he is doing Robbie Williams!

-Sorry, I don't do living people!

[impersonator walks away, leaving announcer on stage]

Let's hear it, one more time for the.. eh, impers..eh, whatever...

[announcer takes a bow in the midst of silence]

Woman, I can hardly American Express...

Last Sunday it was an international Women's day, once again. I have made a habbit of taking my wife (and lately our daughter too) to eat in a restaurant to celebrate that day. My wife appreciates it. She likes to go out to have a dinner that day more than on Mother's day, because it's so boring to do like everybody else. And the restaurants are so fully booked on each Mother's day.

This time we did it a week in advance. We had a good meal at Steak House in Koskikeskus. It's not an extremely fancy place but the quality of the food is admirable. In particular, we like their sauce and baked potato. It was kind of ad hoc situation during our visit in Tampere. The service was good and fast.

If you wanted to eat with ultimate experience in Tampere, I suggest you should visit Saludi, which lies quite near railway station. Those plank steaks (lankkupihvit) are delicious and well comparable to the best steak houses in Stockholm that I encountered. There is also exotic food available, like alligator.

I remember my wife telling me how she had told her work mates that I had taken her to eat out on Women's day back in mid-90's. A group of green faces were saying: 'My husband never takes me out on Women's day. You lucky you!' With that story in mind, it's nice to keep up the tradition.

World Class Act Is Back And I'm Proud (of it)

The most refreshing news of the week was to hear that old champion Janne Ahonen does a comeback. Ski jump may not be a sport known to everyone around the world, but here in the Nordic and Central European countries it's very popular. Also North-America and Japan has had skillful jumpers. During each turn of the year they compete in Germany and Austria, which is an especially respected contest. Janne has won it 5 times - like no other has done so far.

Janne is already a legend, only to be outrun by another flying Finn, Matti Nykänen - a true legend in many ways per se. He's only 31, so it's not too late to come back for Janne. I believe he could still achieve something worth adding to his CV. I'm even confident about it.

Michael Jordan made a comeback after a break. So did Muhammad Ali several times actually. Even Swedish icon, Peter Forsberg, keeps doing it, although I'm not sure if he's ever retired yet - just been injured. I don't hesitate to admit that Foppa is probably the best ice-hockey player ever, but from Finland's perspective I'd rather not see him wearing a 'tre kronor' shirt ever again. The same applies to Mats Sundin, LOL!

To me, Mr. Ahonen is a world class athlete (in Sweden, it has to be 'världsklass'; otherwise it's nothing), like the names above. On the other hand, I respect people who make a decision to quit and never come back. But if someone has hunger for success left and the body is fit to it, why not do it? And, this is just my speculation, he might be a good 'father figure' for other members of our ski jump team, especially for a promising Harri Olli.

The Finland Syndrome of Mr. 47

Is this 'Chinese democracy' in Finland? The prime minister Matti Vanhanen came up with an idea of changing the retiring age to 65 when he was skiing in Lapland. Just like our beloved former president Kekkonen who ruled Finland for 26 years. Those were the days of democracy, LOL!

Yesterday the infamous 'Lex Nokia' (which I also blogged about earlier) was accepted by the parliament: 96 pro and 56 against. Some people claim that Nokia was putting pressure on politicians although Nokia leaders deny it (how else?).

What strikes me bad, is the fact that as many as 47 members of the parliament were absent in voting. That many people had something better to do at the moment. Cheese, we have elected ALL of them to do their job. And, if those 47 were actually against the new law change but were afraid to drop by and vote against the will of the group decision in their party, they are real cowards. Hats off to two courageous members who did so. As we can calculate, the sum of 56 and 47 would have been enough to annul the Lex Nokia.

What makes me mad, is the fact that those 47 opportunists can later bark at both directions. If the law proves out to be succesful in retrospect, they can claim to have supported it all along. Then again, if it turns out to be a catastrophe, they can say they didn't like it in the first place. Man, I'm getting more and more sick and tired of politics, day by day!

Hell = kitchen?

Here's a joke I invented on my way to work. Enjoy and be warned:

Client: Can I have some ham, please?
GR: There's no fucking ham here.
Client: But... this is England and there is ham in every restaurant here.
GR: Hey, bloke, up yours! This is a bistro, not a fucking ham palace!

Karma is as Karma does

Last Sunday was full of different television shows which I wouldn't even notice if I weren't married. Here's a brief introduction.

We got a new Miss Finland (Miss Suomi). She's Essi Pöysti and she looks good. Good enough to walk in the streets of Stockholm. Even in Östermalm. Personally I don't like that skinny women. They claim that it's fashionable for women to show their ribs. I strongly disagree. The whole show was basically waste of time. They said that this time women are more daring than ever, but actually they showed less than usual. And the people got to select Miss Finland for the first time. I'd rather remove this competition than Eurovision song contest. If I had to choose, that is.

Funny thing happened when the brand new Miss reported that "let's see how long my boyfriend stays with me". Talk about frank talk! Usually they promise that nothing will change their love towards their boy friends. And every time they will break up during one year. At least she's not shy about it, LOL!

Then we got a winner in a choir contest, Kuorosota ('Choir war'). I saw some similar ads in Sweden before I left there. Swedes got to it first once again. The group from Lappajärvi won deservedly. They had a heavy rock theme on all the time. There is a slogan in Finland: "Hevillä ei hävitä" which means 'we won't lose easily' AND 'you can't lose with heavy rock'. A double entendre that has been in heavy (pun intented) use lately. There was a lot of discussion about the choirs' pre-recorded performances, which kind of takes away the point of the contest. No wonder the band was never shown: it wasn't there at all! No need to 'lip sync' their playing this time.

Another funny thing happened. In the choir contest final we heard, among others, You shook me all night long by AC/DC. By coincidence, the same song was heard in Miss Finland contest. All over and over again in both shows, almost all night long, LOL!

And the last but usually the least: 'Tanssii tähtien kanssa' ('Dancing with the stars'; in Sweden it's called 'Let's dance'). The 4th season started with reminiscing. The show has bad karma in Finland. In the first season, an actress lost her son during the competition. In second, a famous singer (Kirka) died in days before the show was to begin. This year a former Miss Finland lost her dad and today it was reported in the news that another actress has lost her husband, Åke Lindman - a real old-class actor and director, soccer player and worthy of any respect a man can get. It's a strange coincidence, which may affect future seasons and the contenders' desire to accept the invitation. No-one claims to be superstitious but still... It starts to be a shitty job for the hosts to show a happy face in the show!

Times they are a-hardenin'

We are in recession in Finland, officially. That's how we call it (taantuma), although the term depression (lama) might be more appropriate. It may be so that the word 'lama' is still too painful for us to use; in the early 90's it was bad depression in Finland and we survived it with scars. Nokia's huge growth in the world helped some. However, they say that this time it'll be deeper and longer - and I think that people are not ready to accept it.

Last Autumn when the American banks went bankrupt, Finnish experts and politicians in particular said that we are prepared for this. We have a buffer to take care of nasty surprises of this kind. Buffer my ass! The economy is on its knees and most of the companies are firing people as much as they can. In fact, it feels like a good time to get rid of unwanted personnel. No one asks awkward questions. It's the recession you know.

Now good advice is gold's worth. Our prime minister Matti Vanhanen said that we must change the general retiring age from 63 back to 65. It should be done to avoid shortage of workers in near future. And to help us pay back the extra loan we must take now. Well well well, politicians may work effectively at 65, but not all the others. Let's give a politician, 65, a shovel in his/her hand and tell to dig a ditch 7,5 hours a day, 5 days a week. We can come back after a month to check how long and deep ditch the politician has dug. Just to see how much worth is a 65-year-old in physical work. Sure an old man/woman can press some buttons and move a mouse, but I guess not so many person in his/her 60's is even familiar with modern technology at the moment. Let alone they wanted to learn it. I'm sure Mr. Vanhanen himself could do physical work as well, but he's not anyone. Hell, he's 2 meters tall!

I have saved some money for my pension insurance trust (or something like that). It should give me a chance to retire at 60 and the insurance will give me money until I'm 63. Now, as the age limit may change, does it mean that I could retire not before than at 62 and get secured until 65? That is THE question. But the insurance company promised me I could retire at 60! Or... do they lower the amount of money they will give me? Either way, it sucks! I have a long way to get there still, but these things do matter to me.

Trade organizations have not been glad about Mr. Vanhanen's suggestion. As a matter of fact, they have even pointed out the possibility of general strike. I wonder what that would be like... It hasn't happened in Finland since 1956 and it's most unlikely to happen now, but who knows.

It was around the year 1980 when our biology teacher told his prophecy to us young students. He said: "Times are going to be hard on you, when we - the great post-war age-class - will retire. You are going to pay our pensions!" Harsh talk to teenagers, but times were different. Anyway, he was right already then. I have carried his truth with me all these years. It wasn't until the end of the 20th century that the first visionaires started to give comments like that. Hats off to my old teacher with weird sense of humor. I'm sure you are laughing by yourself now. Somewhere.

Slalom? No thanks, I stick to my brand...

Downhill skiing is fun. And scary. Like high places in general. When I was younger (so much younger than today), I was thinking I'd never even try downhill skiing. I was more than 30 before I tried it for the first time. It was worth trying! And the Hogan's slogan in the title became history...

When I mention slalom, I'm not talking about Alps or alike. My skiing history extends to small Finnish hills only. Even those are too steep for me sometimes. It's dangerous enough, and the speed is just right for me.

We were doing it last Sunday in Ellivuori which locates near Vammala city, about 40 km from Nokia. Our daughter loves downhill skiing too. She likes everything fast, it seems. We were in children's hillside all the time though. All of us were looking at the bigger hillside next to the children's with eagerness, but she has to learn to ski better first. We are not competent enough to guide her there.

I haven't ridden a motorbike ever in my life, but I can guess that it's the same feeling of freedom that gets you there. I've done some riding with skimobiles and jet skis in high speed (and without a helmet, I must confess. How stupid of me!) and the feel of living surfaces. It's like an injection of adrenaline.

Apostrophe (') Not now

Warning: don't read this, if you want to stay in good mood!

I have seen a couple of documents which deal with the end of the world (as we know it and I feel insecure). According to ancient prophecies, the world ends at 2012. December 22nd, to be precise. As a great follower of number combinations, I really hate it that it isn't 20.12.2012, LOL! Mayas had more patience than I apparently.

Since so many cultures have come up with the same date, it's troubling me. It really is. They had no idea of what the others had calculated for the apocalypse. Because nature can be arranged into mathematical forms (DNA's, Physical laws etc.), something like this might be able to be foreseen as well. If I like to speculate on conspiracy theories, why not on doomsdays too?

I'm not laughing. Neither was I when the new Millennium began. I thought to myself, "This is the century we all are going to die". Meaning those who testified the change of it. Young and old. I still didn't realise that the end would be this near.

You can google about it more, but what made me nervous was the news about the super volcano in the USA. It's been there forever and now showed some possible signs of activity in near future. That combined with the other news, it started to sound like the date in 2012 could be possible. If that super volcano erupted, it would remove Northern America totally and leave a thick ash cloud all around the world. Or something like that. That's how they evaluated the danger of eruption in the newspapers here. So the whole world would look like London 100 years ago.

End of the world wouldn't be fair to our children. We grown-ups may deserve to die because of our bad moves when it comes to control the climate changes, but the kids are innocent. If the danger of the super volcano is very well declared, why nothing has been done to avoid it. Because we don't believe in old mumbo-jumbo? Because it's more important to set democracy off in Iraq? At least I'm planning on to take a day off on the 22nd of December 2012 and spend it with my family. Just to be on the safe side. If there ever was one...