Matti Vanhanen on Papers

If you live in Finland, you probaply have noticed the hurricane our prime minister is going thru. To go thru highlights:

• Vanhanen was normal representative of Centre-Party in the parlament, of which very few had heard of before he rose to the highest seat in the realm after the previous PM had to step down because of scandal, about memos of Finland's role with USA in War With Terror. There was some question, was the way she got them legal (she got them thru "backdoor", even though she apparently had the security clearance to ask and get them officially).
  
• After Vanhanen got the seat, the papers told how he was loving father who lived about 50 km's north of Helsinki in house he himself had build. Though the PM-status came with big house in the city, he refused it in favor of the smaller (but still rather big) house he himself had constructed. Absolutist, he invited Foreign Minister of Russia to his kitchen to drink orange juice.
  
• Then it comes up that he and his wife are getting a divorce. They do it calmly, refusing to tell media what is the reason behind it is. Some suspected that the long hours of the hard job is the cause. The ex-couple is still seen together, with and without children.
  
• Vanhanen announces he will be taking part in the presidential election next year. Though candinates are many, the three "important one's" are Halonen (Social Democrats, current president), Niinistö (Coalition Party, former finance minister who know holds some position in EU bank), and Vanhanen, who enjoys public trust and is in the polls near behind Halonen.
  
• Trash magazines start to throw up rumours that the reason behind divorce is another woman. First its hinted its Tanja Karpela, former Miss Finland, who also has place in the current administration as Minister of Culture. They are said to have slept together at least once in hotel room. Vanhanen admits he was in the room, but says they were talking about politics.
  
• Few weeks after that, the King of Trash Papers, Seitsemän Päivää (Seven Days), usually called 'Seiska' starts the first part of classic two-parter, where "Kaarina" (name altered and face blurred), tells of her sex-relationship to Vanhanen. Vanhanen refuses to answer, saying that the divorce is painful subject to him and he and his soon-to-be-ex-wife have deal of not spreading their lifes to papers. The papers got a fieldday with his "I dont admid, I dont deny" answer he gave to the papers. Suprisingly, yellow press makes big articles with the Seiska's stories, even though they are not grounded in any facts.
  

Most finns dont care one way or another about Vanhanen's sexual life, as long as he does his job well. Most serious papers are either refusing to comment on the whole subject, while others are ridiculing the whole mess ('why does "Kaarina's" name have quote-marks around it? Its typical for Seiska's "journalism"). The only place where I have seen paper encouraging Vanhanen to take stand in the subject, was Metro, where old, retired reporter wrote in her column that she wanted to know - that not knowing hurt Vanhanen's imago.

Seeing as there is no proof this story is true - other than the word of Seiska, that dosent have that much weight (in past it has been shown that they sometimes are themselves behind their own stories) - it's probaply just way to to throw dirt at Vanhanen, who was pretty spotless before hand.

I am mostly amazed that evening papers take such interest in the subject. At the same time, London reports of second bombing attempt, and it gets burried on behalf of alleged extra-marrial relationships of PM before he became PM. It should be easy to see which of the subjects is the more important. Let the man have his peace. Would think that the reporters of the papers in question would be ashamed of themselves. Is this why they went to the uni for four years in a row, just to make two page-articles about some scandal, developed by Seiska that isint probaply even true?

About Pirates of Old

When we were young, we all dreamed of lives as pirates (well, we lads did, anyway, girls played 'home', I suppose). Some of us (read: me) even had "pirate-kit". It came with eyepatch, hookhand and dagger.

Incidentally, why do pirates have - at least, when thinking stereotypes - hook instead of hand, only one leg and patch over eye? And then kids WANT to be like them. "Yeah, when I grow up, I'm going to have only one eye, hand and leg. And then I'm going to rob people."

Right.

If we think logically, those identitymarks are actually silent witnesses to made mistakes. You see, on ships of old, there were lots of changes to get rid of your appendixes if you weren't careful. You are tying a knot with some rope and then the sails get wind - and there you go, right hand! Was nice knowing you!

And after losing the hand, our examble subject goes with group-pressure and gets himself a hook. There's nothing wrong with hook-hands, per se, but apparently the men of old werent really that big on preparing to bed. So, once sleeping, a bed bug goes and bites the pirate next to eye. While sleeping, the body moves on its own and tries to slap the nasty bug. And there goes the eye... And while absent-mindedly scraching one's body, its easy to make impressive looking scars, that really make women go WILD.

With the eye goes 3D-vision, and the area of sight goes from 180 degrees to 100. Its now really easy to stumble and lose that leg too.

Now we also have to remember, that back then, people thought veggies tasted good, but werent really that important to health. This caused body to lack vitamins and - in the end - teeth to fall off.

And there he is, our pirate. With one eye, leg and hand, with impressive scars and nasty looking beard (no mirrors and its hard to shave with your weaker arm, while the floor goes up and down). And let us not forget the teeth. Or lack, thereof.

And really, thats all worth it, to be pirate and having parrot that can say "CRAACK! OFF THE BLANK! CRAAC!". And of course, robbing people. And looking cool, under that Skull-and-Bones flag. A Kodak moment.

Oh, Pirate I was meant to be...

Playlists on radio

I used to have office job. I wrote stuff from papers to computer - for easier data handling and storage. It was pretty easy, routine stuff, that after a while started to be boring. Was cool to put the radio on and listen to some music.

Im pretty sure that around Finland I was not the only bored employee to do so. This was the first time I truly realized what 'playlists' meant on radio. They are pretty ok, I guess, as long as you only listen to radio that 20 minutes on your way to shopping, or listen on background while waiting for something. But when you start to listen it more or less regulary eight hours a day, five days a week, you start to notice that there are three songs that are playing the whole time. Sometimes the songs are good, sometimes.. not. But even a song most awesome and exellent becomes annoying after listening 50 times in a week (thats ten times a day during workweek, if you suck in maths).

Now Im in outdoors work. I have MiniDisc, so not really listening to radio, expect while moving from one place to second. Thats about 1,5 hours each day. Listening to Radio City (Rock and Sport - I still dont understand why the "and sport" is part of the description, dosent go well with the imago, imho), mostly because it means no Britney Spears and friends. There are several good songs going on. Sometimes the playlist plays older music, sometimes even decades old. But mostly it plays three songs over and over again. I dont feel that 1,5 hours of radio a days is that much - not compared to the eight to ten hours many people do. If I get annoyed, what do other people feel?

Read somewhere that there are over 50 000 songs in the world. I think thats underestimated number, but even if its about right... why does radio only play about 50 songs a week? Surely they know that listeners dont care to hear everything all over again - and change channel. Maybe Britney Spears is smaller evil, sometimes, if it means you get to hear 200 songs a week (by swapping channels every few hours), instead of 50.

Considering how many people hate playlists, it would be natural to assume that there would be a channel without playlist or with playlist that has hundreds - thousands - songs playing and which circles those songs more or less evenly. It might suprise you to know that there isint one. Even Radio Helsinki, which was long against playlists, and trusted into the ear of the person in duty at the moment, recently went to playlists. Or so I have been told (I have not seen this on print).

I have been further told that creators rights with playlists are much smaller than with "independent" selection. That using playlists is many times cheaper. Maybe true. But who gains from this? Not the listeners. Not the advertisers - if you are going to swap channel anyway, you can as well do it at the beginning of commercial break. Not the channel - people are leaving the boat. Maybe artists - people will buy CD's instead of listening radio. But somehow I doubt this.

Please, enlighten me.

GLA Misassembled

Last week, Marvel finished GLA Misassembled miniseries (four issues), written by Dan Slott and drawn by Paul Pelletier.

The comic is about Great Lake Avengers - a "superteam", whose members powers are either useless or politically incorrect. The team consists of Flatman - who is as thin as paper, Mr. Immortal - who can die but not stay dead, Doorman - who can teleport stuff about two meters trough his "black hole" body, Dinah Soar, who looks like some flying dinosaur (and can fly, but not talk), and Big Bertha - really goodlooking anorectic woman, who has the ability to become superstrong (and superfat) superhero. She disposes her weight by thowing up. Works as supermodel in her civilian identity.

The story centers around quest for new members. You see, GLA members have this annoying habit of dying (Mr. Immortal dosent count). So they need to recry new members. But everyone knows GLA, and nobody wants to join. The second tread of the story is about Mr. Immortal, and why he cant die (they illustrate his suicide attempts really well).

The comic is all about humour. The first issue is about the history of Mr. Immortal and GLA, the second issue is for the quest for new members, third issue is about the villain attack, and in number four it all ties back together.

The comic is fun - nothing is funnier that squirrel named "Monkey Joe" giving good tips for life ("Friends dont let friends play the Magnolia soundtrack", "please dont do what you see Mr. Immortal doing in this issue.."). On the other hand, its also sad - the GLA members are really sympathic punch, and when the comic is about destroying the team... Good reading, though.

Its different from Giffen/DeMatteis JLA-stories, to whose fans this comic was obviously intented, considering the logo-design, and nearly equally good with the best of JLA-stories of the era. Expect, of course, this is more sad, and dosent potrait always the heroes in so positive light as JLA did (they were, after all, the premiere superteam of their world).

Recommended.

Happy Poopbags

I have summerjob as "green area worker", which means that, along other things, I also remove unwanted plants from ground. This means that I have to be on my knees, possibly even sitting on my butt while removing some plants with bigger roots. I also have to walk in bushes, making seeing where I put my feet somewhat hard.

Its not nice to sit or walk into dogshit.

Two weeks ago, a workmate of mine was cutting grass with one of those hand-held grasscutters. The grass was kneehigh, so he just waved the stick around, not seeing where he stuck it. It was safe enough; it was grassfield, there shouldnt be any rocks or anything like that you could stick the mover on.

Expect dog shit. My workmate got to know PERSONALLY what it means when "shit hits the fan". He was not nice view to see.

There is a law in Finland stating that you shouldnt keep dogs free on areas at towns not so specified. And if the dog needs to make his Big Business, the "mines" have to be gathered into bags. Actually, there is a company making bags just for this type of problem - plastic bags that you can safely dispose with the rest of bio-trash. They market them with the name "Hauska koirankakkapussi" - "happy dogpoopbag". The law is there for a reason.

If you are a dog owner. Please, think of the green area workers.

Welcome.

I got this blog purely out of whim. It will mostly be on english, but sometimes in Finnish as well, depending on the subject and what I am feeling at the moment.
I thought that it would be good to have a place where I can write about stuff I have seen and read, so I dont have to bother people on forums and irc about this. Those who are interested, are free to read and suffer, others not so inclined are free to walk (or surf) past.

Hope this is worth reading.