Today, the 1st of October, 2009

Today Tampere celebrates its 230 years of being a city. Gustaf III founded it in 1779. It's a long way from those days, a lot of water has run down in Tammerkoski, the falls in the heart of the city. Yesterday, a radio reporter claimed that Tampere was now 320 years old. Some journalism, some math brilliance. Happy birthday, my old home town, however old you are!

Today the grocery tax was lowered finally. The reducement is so small that it's hardly visible. When rounding cents (hundredths of an euro) to the nearest 5 cents as we do in Finland (1 and 2 cent coins are not in use, although they exist), the gain may be totally lost sometimes. They have calculated that a family saves 100 euros per year after the tax reducement. It's a temporary relief though, because the tax will go up again next Summer, by one per cent. A lot of price tag changing for so little amount of money.

Today the alcohol tax was raised. This will not concern me that much, since I have started to cut down my alcohol consuming. The point of getting drunk, if there ever was one, has never appealed to me. Instead of strong liquor, I have plans to concentrate on wines. My wife has come to the same conclusion. Hell, 15 years ago I didn't even like wine. Well, now I do. It's not that dangerous nor expensive to open up a bottle every once in a while. It may be even healthy, if you believe what they have found out about redwine.

Today it's official: the great Finnish formula driver Kimi Räikkönen leaves Ferrari. It's not yet sure whether he will carry on racing in Formula 1. He has lately been participating in some rally racing competitions, with promising results. If I received 42 million euros as a golden handshake for leaving my job, I wouldn't hesitate to retire. Then again, my career hasn't been as glorious as his. So far, LOL!

Today the police starts giving speeding tickets after you have been caught speeding 11 km/h. After speeding 6 km/h, they will give you a warning. Until today, the decision has been under policemen's consideration, when the speed limit has been exceeded worth giving a ticket. Now the rules are clear and there's no room for speculation. However, I'd like the speedometers to show the precise speed of the vehicle. As far as I know, every car's speedo shows too much. How can I drive and speed 10 km/h and thus avoid the ticket, if I don't know my exact velocity?

Today I started using ads in my blog. I hope to see the hit count that way. It would be great to know are we talking about dozens or thousands of readers here. Funny, those ads reflect my posts. Now there seems to be a lot of links to criminal TV series on DVD available. It'll be quite interesting to see if the bot detects and solves any of my multiple quotations and other twisted jokes I plant in my blog. I'd better not let it affect my blogging anyway...