Merry Christmas!
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Saturday, December 06, 2014
Happy Independence Day, Finland!
Good thing we got out of Russia when we did. Russia sucks.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Rurouni Kenshin, movies 2 and 3 (spoilers)
Lots of spoilers. OTOH: I wouldn't recommend these movies to the people who haven't read the manga anyway. The whole trilogy relies very heavily on knowing more than the movies tell you. The movies are great if you have read the manga; not sure how they compare to the anime.
Saw Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno and Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends. For some reason I'd assumed that the first of these is the Kyoto arc of the manga, and the second is the revenge arc. This is not the case: they are both the Kyoto arc, and are meant to be watched together. Kyoto Inferno ends in a cliffhanger - one that's not in the manga. Kyoto Inferno is paced quite slowly; The Legend Ends is full of action.
Hmm, does that mean they are gonna do the revenge arc sometime later? I certainly hope so.
The good things: the casting. Everyone is very much in the spirit of the manga, and everyone looks just right. Except, maybe, that Aoshi is way older than he should be. The guy (Yusuke Iseya) is still very much in the spirit of the manga, though, and does his best with whatever the screenwriters have done with his character. The acting is good all over. The whole thing is visually beautiful. And the fighting, wow!
I can't remember any other movie where you have 4 heroes (well, "heroes" is a bit stretching it) fighting the villain and not the other way around. Unlike the movie villains our heroes figure out fairly quickly that it's not a good idea to take turns, and they attack the villain all at once. And they still have a fairly hard time.
The bad things: pretty much everything they did to the plot.
First of all, Aoshi. In the movie Aoshi a) has no logical reason to hate Kenshin at all, b) has been fucked in the head since the beginning of Meiji rule, which is like 10 years, and c) appears to have been insane to begin with. It is quite unclear why he just started to look for Kenshin now, and why Misao likes him (he's been insane since Misao was what, five?).
Second, the government. In order to save its face it does a number of things none of which is likely to result in any face-saving.
Third, "the ball of stupid". In the end, everyone appears to have caught some brain disease causing them to make tactically unsound decisions. It does work out for the good guys, because the bad guys are similarly afflicted.
Still, had a good time and gonna buy the DVD. So there.
Saw Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno and Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends. For some reason I'd assumed that the first of these is the Kyoto arc of the manga, and the second is the revenge arc. This is not the case: they are both the Kyoto arc, and are meant to be watched together. Kyoto Inferno ends in a cliffhanger - one that's not in the manga. Kyoto Inferno is paced quite slowly; The Legend Ends is full of action.
Hmm, does that mean they are gonna do the revenge arc sometime later? I certainly hope so.
The good things: the casting. Everyone is very much in the spirit of the manga, and everyone looks just right. Except, maybe, that Aoshi is way older than he should be. The guy (Yusuke Iseya) is still very much in the spirit of the manga, though, and does his best with whatever the screenwriters have done with his character. The acting is good all over. The whole thing is visually beautiful. And the fighting, wow!
I can't remember any other movie where you have 4 heroes (well, "heroes" is a bit stretching it) fighting the villain and not the other way around. Unlike the movie villains our heroes figure out fairly quickly that it's not a good idea to take turns, and they attack the villain all at once. And they still have a fairly hard time.
The bad things: pretty much everything they did to the plot.
First of all, Aoshi. In the movie Aoshi a) has no logical reason to hate Kenshin at all, b) has been fucked in the head since the beginning of Meiji rule, which is like 10 years, and c) appears to have been insane to begin with. It is quite unclear why he just started to look for Kenshin now, and why Misao likes him (he's been insane since Misao was what, five?).
Second, the government. In order to save its face it does a number of things none of which is likely to result in any face-saving.
Third, "the ball of stupid". In the end, everyone appears to have caught some brain disease causing them to make tactically unsound decisions. It does work out for the good guys, because the bad guys are similarly afflicted.
Still, had a good time and gonna buy the DVD. So there.
Tuesday, September 02, 2014
Orthodox larps for secular Jews
Last summer I was visiting a synagogue in Italy, in a city with a very small Jewish community. The synagogue was lovely, and so was the lady who was guiding the tour. The synagogue was also very obviously Orthodox - you can tell that from having separate sections for men and for women. The lady appeared to be considerably less Orthodox, although with the modern Orthodox you can't always tell.
The description of the local Jewish life was something I've heard before: a small community, the people are very secular, the synagogue is "of course" Orthodox, the young generation doesn't give a fuck, the leaders of the community are concerned.
"For fuck's sake," I thought. "Doesn't she see how those things are related, and why can't the so-called community leaders buy a fucking clue?" I did not say that out loud: first of all, she was a very nice lady whom I didn't want to upset, and second, the community leaders wouldn't recognize a fucking clue if it bit them right on the ass.
I've been on vacation in Italy 5 times. I haven't seen a single obviously Orthodox Jew over there. I've lived in Helsinki for 18 years now. I've seen an obviously Orthodox Jew once. I think he was the guy who runs the local Chabad house. This probably means that there is another one (Chabad houses are usually run by couples). The rabbi of the local synagogue makes three, if he is really Orthodox. I wonder if those guys even have enough for a minyan (you need 10; if you are Orthodox, you need 10 men).
Seriously: why? In the USA, they have different synagogues for the beard and wig brigade, for the ham and cheese brigade, and everyone in between. Nobody in their right mind would think of establishing an Orthodox synagogue and expecting the local young secular Jews to show up there and larp the Orthodox. I think everyone involved would be rather surprised if anyone did. So why is Europe so full of Orthodox synagogues run for (and, I suspect, often by) the secular folk, up to the point of asking said secular folk to show their dicks, if any? And, more importantly, why is anyone surprised when the young (OK, let's face it, "young" in the sense of secularization of Jews in Europe starts with my grandparents' generation and possibly even earlier) people fail to come to this badly written larp and go to some crayfish party instead?
The only explanation that I can think of is that somebody out there is really not in his or her right mind.
The description of the local Jewish life was something I've heard before: a small community, the people are very secular, the synagogue is "of course" Orthodox, the young generation doesn't give a fuck, the leaders of the community are concerned.
"For fuck's sake," I thought. "Doesn't she see how those things are related, and why can't the so-called community leaders buy a fucking clue?" I did not say that out loud: first of all, she was a very nice lady whom I didn't want to upset, and second, the community leaders wouldn't recognize a fucking clue if it bit them right on the ass.
I've been on vacation in Italy 5 times. I haven't seen a single obviously Orthodox Jew over there. I've lived in Helsinki for 18 years now. I've seen an obviously Orthodox Jew once. I think he was the guy who runs the local Chabad house. This probably means that there is another one (Chabad houses are usually run by couples). The rabbi of the local synagogue makes three, if he is really Orthodox. I wonder if those guys even have enough for a minyan (you need 10; if you are Orthodox, you need 10 men).
Seriously: why? In the USA, they have different synagogues for the beard and wig brigade, for the ham and cheese brigade, and everyone in between. Nobody in their right mind would think of establishing an Orthodox synagogue and expecting the local young secular Jews to show up there and larp the Orthodox. I think everyone involved would be rather surprised if anyone did. So why is Europe so full of Orthodox synagogues run for (and, I suspect, often by) the secular folk, up to the point of asking said secular folk to show their dicks, if any? And, more importantly, why is anyone surprised when the young (OK, let's face it, "young" in the sense of secularization of Jews in Europe starts with my grandparents' generation and possibly even earlier) people fail to come to this badly written larp and go to some crayfish party instead?
The only explanation that I can think of is that somebody out there is really not in his or her right mind.
Putin-setä asuu Venäjällä
Putin-setä asuu Venäjällä.
Sieltä on niin lyhyt matka helvettiin,
Kohta Putin-setä
on samassa paikassa kuin setä Lenin
ja setä Ho Chi Minh.
Putunilla on niin suuri otsa,
siihen mahtuu Krim, Ukraina,
tiikerit ja kurjetkin.
Putin-setä ei hymyile,
kun on jo käyttänyt liikaa
rahaa botoksiin.
Putin-setä asuu Venäjällä,
ja sitä ei kutsuta kylään
edes Vietnamiin.
Hän rakastaa kaikkia,
ja häntä rakastaa
vain setä Chavez
ja setä Ho Shi Mihn.
Sieltä on niin lyhyt matka helvettiin,
Kohta Putin-setä
on samassa paikassa kuin setä Lenin
ja setä Ho Chi Minh.
Putunilla on niin suuri otsa,
siihen mahtuu Krim, Ukraina,
tiikerit ja kurjetkin.
Putin-setä ei hymyile,
kun on jo käyttänyt liikaa
rahaa botoksiin.
Putin-setä asuu Venäjällä,
ja sitä ei kutsuta kylään
edes Vietnamiin.
Hän rakastaa kaikkia,
ja häntä rakastaa
vain setä Chavez
ja setä Ho Shi Mihn.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
RxJava on Android
Having never put a single devil into hell before, the girl found the first experience a little painful.
I am still not sure it was worth the trouble, but it appears to work fine.
I am still not sure it was worth the trouble, but it appears to work fine.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Dear Lord,
If you have any sense of justice at all, please make a 10-meter saguaro cactus grow out of Putin's chair, and right up his ass, right as he speaks to the Russian parliament. This will be a most impressive display of your might, much better than burning bushes. Besides, a burning bush is not very well visible through the pants.
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Dear Russian leaders
I am not your citizen. I have never even seen your country since its establishment in 1991, and I would like to keep it that way. However, I do speak the same language, and intend to continue doing so, and I am starting to feel your undying love for me. Again.
I was born in the USSR, lived there for 16 years, and, like all the citizens, was very much loved by the authorities. This love was expressed in not allowing people to leave, or allowing it only with great difficulty. I think that if you express such a love for your partner in a civilized country, it is called unlawful restraint and punished by several years of imprisonment; the Soviet authorities, however, wrote their own laws and had nobody who could put them in prison where they so obviously belonged.
Eventually we did manage to leave, and the Soviet authorities had better things to do that loving us at a distance - after all, they had all of Eastern Europe to love.
In 1989 the Eastern block started disintegrating, and in 1991 the Soviet Union fell apart, and all the citizens held in the country by authorities' love finally had the opportunity to leave. For a while Russia had other things to do than to express forcible unrequited love to people beyond its borders. Now, however, you are at it again.
Your president just said that you consider it your right to protect the Russian-speaking people beyond your borders. Yes, that means me. Now face it: every single Russian speaker who left Russia and lives as a member of a minority beyond your borders is there because he or she, for one reason or another, chose not to live as member of the majority within your borders. And every single Russian speaker who was born outside of Russia in the other parts of the former Soviet Union and would actually prefer to live as a part of a Russian majority, is still outside Russia because you did not make him or her welcome. It's your country, of course, and you don't have to make them welcome unless you want to, but you appear to have a disturbing tendency to only welcome them when they come with their own land - or somebody else's.
You, of course, are not the only ones to have wanted to love and protect me when I had absolutely no desire to be loved or protected. Several times in my life I have encountered men who wanted to love and protect me in the same way. They had to be convinced otherwise, usually with the help of heavy or sharp objects. When a guy comes up to me in a street at night, saying things like "nice tits" or "wanna fuck" or "I have a huge dick", I am not particularly concerned, because they usually just annoy me for a while and go away. When a strange man comes up to me and says that he would like to walk me home and protect me, I immediately start looking for something heavy, because these situations have always ended in violence.
There are two key differences here. First of all, those men were strangers, and you are publicly known. Unfortunately whatever is known about you does not work in your favor at all. Second, those men's expressed desire to protect me makes me look for an empty bottle or suchlike. When you say you want to protect me, I feel like looking for a good-sized nuclear arsenal.
Anyway - on some level I wish I could really share my feelings, but for that I would need the aforementioned nuclear arsenal, which I don't currently have, and besides it would hurt a lot of innocent civilians who haven't even voted for you. So, could you just please bugger off together with your love, and leave us in peace? Preferably before somebody's feelings get expressed by weapons.
I was born in the USSR, lived there for 16 years, and, like all the citizens, was very much loved by the authorities. This love was expressed in not allowing people to leave, or allowing it only with great difficulty. I think that if you express such a love for your partner in a civilized country, it is called unlawful restraint and punished by several years of imprisonment; the Soviet authorities, however, wrote their own laws and had nobody who could put them in prison where they so obviously belonged.
Eventually we did manage to leave, and the Soviet authorities had better things to do that loving us at a distance - after all, they had all of Eastern Europe to love.
In 1989 the Eastern block started disintegrating, and in 1991 the Soviet Union fell apart, and all the citizens held in the country by authorities' love finally had the opportunity to leave. For a while Russia had other things to do than to express forcible unrequited love to people beyond its borders. Now, however, you are at it again.
Your president just said that you consider it your right to protect the Russian-speaking people beyond your borders. Yes, that means me. Now face it: every single Russian speaker who left Russia and lives as a member of a minority beyond your borders is there because he or she, for one reason or another, chose not to live as member of the majority within your borders. And every single Russian speaker who was born outside of Russia in the other parts of the former Soviet Union and would actually prefer to live as a part of a Russian majority, is still outside Russia because you did not make him or her welcome. It's your country, of course, and you don't have to make them welcome unless you want to, but you appear to have a disturbing tendency to only welcome them when they come with their own land - or somebody else's.
You, of course, are not the only ones to have wanted to love and protect me when I had absolutely no desire to be loved or protected. Several times in my life I have encountered men who wanted to love and protect me in the same way. They had to be convinced otherwise, usually with the help of heavy or sharp objects. When a guy comes up to me in a street at night, saying things like "nice tits" or "wanna fuck" or "I have a huge dick", I am not particularly concerned, because they usually just annoy me for a while and go away. When a strange man comes up to me and says that he would like to walk me home and protect me, I immediately start looking for something heavy, because these situations have always ended in violence.
There are two key differences here. First of all, those men were strangers, and you are publicly known. Unfortunately whatever is known about you does not work in your favor at all. Second, those men's expressed desire to protect me makes me look for an empty bottle or suchlike. When you say you want to protect me, I feel like looking for a good-sized nuclear arsenal.
Anyway - on some level I wish I could really share my feelings, but for that I would need the aforementioned nuclear arsenal, which I don't currently have, and besides it would hurt a lot of innocent civilians who haven't even voted for you. So, could you just please bugger off together with your love, and leave us in peace? Preferably before somebody's feelings get expressed by weapons.
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