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.
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!
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?
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.
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.
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!)
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!)
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