In the news

U.S. State Depratment's report on patterns of global terrorism in 2003 is finally here. No time to read it all today, though. But they say that terrorism is down from the year before. Could it be that the war on terrorism is working?

President Tarja Halonen is going to sign the new Alien law today. I mean, she does not really 100% have to but I am sure she will. Good thing, too, at least mostly.

Valtioneuvosto says that the prices of residence permits will stay the same, and then says in the same article "Suomessa haettuna ensimmäinen oleskelulupa maksaa 170 euroa ja työntekijän oleskelulupa 304 euroa . Työntekijän oleskeluluvan maksu vastaa aikaisempien oleskeluluvan ja työluvan yhteenlaskettua maksua. " Aarrgghh! The residence and work permits for foreign workers put together were 140 or 141 euros last year! I hope they mean "worker's first residence permit" or something like that, because it's no fun to pay 304 euros for renewal.

Grandpa and Vienna

When my grandpa marched into Vienna with Russian troops (or rather as a part of Russian troops) in 1945, he looked around and said: "It's so nice here, I wonder why the fuck they tried to occupy our shithole of a country?". At least that's what he told me later - knowing the spirit of those times and the spirit of my grandpa, I am quite sure he said that somewhere where nobody could hear.

He occupied Vienna for a short time again in 1988 as a refugee. On our second day there we all walked out of the place where we were staying to find a grocery store. Grandpa decided that the best way to find it is to ask the locals, and was not bothered at all by the absence of any common language. He would grab the people by the collar, wave his cane at them and ask in broken German: "Russische spräch?" People ran away in terror, and I felt sorry for them.

For some reason beautiful spring mornings always remind me of Vienna.

Vappu

It's finally almost here and I would enjoy it if not for work stress. If I drink enough I will enjoy it regardless.

Every Vappu (at least every Vappu for the last few years, when I have spent it at various parties) I feel a vague dissatisfaction about not hanging out in downtown Helsinki and not going to look at Manta. This is somehow a thing that I should do at Vappu, and if I didn't then I missed it. This feeling is not relieved by the fact that I enjoy parties a lot more than I enjoy watching students put a hat on Manta.

Work stress

Was working too much this week (have some bugs to fix by a deadline that is coming up soon) and am now fairly stressed out, especially since Vappu is coming up so cannot really even work all weekend, or don't want to anyway. Maybe will work on Sunday.

Sex is a great stress reliever, but there was not nearly enough of it. All Killeri's fault, he went home fairly early because Jero was waiting for him there with his paws crossed. The evil man cowardly ran away instead of performing his boyfriendly duties until I am not stressed anymore. OTOH, we all know that if poor Jero lays a steaming log on Killeri's floor I will be here pretending to be sweet and innocent and Killeri will be there and will have to take care of the shit. Besides, I don't think there is any man in the universe who can fuck enough times in a row to completely counter the horrors of debugging software that contains JFreeChart. In fact, I am not sure even a woman (myself included) can have sex that many times in a row.

Hmm, Maimonides has written instructions on how often men of different professions have to satisfy their wives. I wonder in which category he would have put software engineers if such existed at the time, and whether men who volunteeer for Red Cross would get the same kind of waiver as the ones who devote their time to the study of Torah.

A drink would probably do me good, but between the drinking on Tuesday and Vappu I don't really feel like it.

I really should be working now, but don't feel like it either.

Linkola

There was a thread about Linkola on one web forum today. I perked up, hoping for an obituary, but no such luck. Bummer.

Unchristian feeling, I know. (Sounds funny when I say it since obviously am not a Christian, and of course the sentiment in question is a bit unbecoming for a good Jew as well, but "unjewish" does not have quite the same ring to it, rather makes me think of unkosher food.) But I am generally pissed off by people who think that humankind is a cancer on the face of sweet and innocent earth, most especially by the ones who demand the the cancer be eliminated by killing the people who are already living, as opposed to just using birth control, and even more than that by the ones who demand killing more and more people, never include themselves in the number of ones who should be killed, and in addition to that have children. I have no idea how a person who keeps cheering every time someone dies because he thinks there are too many people actually dares to make two more with his very own dick.

Usually such people live very far from the areas of various natural disasters and cheer very loudly when a natural disaster strikes somewhere else with as many casualties as possible. They also tend to live far away from areas of famine and cheer when somebody starves in Africa. As the 9/11 experience has shown, if a disaster strikes their own country the people with such worldview do not usually cheer much, although whether it is because the disaster has struck too close to home or for fear of the disapproval of their fellow citizens I do not know.

I think there should be a very special circle of hell for people like Linkola, a sort of endless seminar where they are forced to read and analyze every line of each other's writings, and where all the victims of natural and unnatural disasters get to beat them up with an ecologically incorrect item of their choice.

Drugs

Orava and Ville write about the impossibility of serious discussion of drugs due to the extremism and ill-informedness of the participants. Hmm, does not pretty much every controversial subject have this problem?

One of the problems of discussion on drugs in particular is that it is often considered socially unacceptable and sometimes illegal to admit having had any personal experience with the subject. If I had ever tried any illegal drugs I would naturally not mention it here.

Cannabis are mostly OK, I think, except for two things: I disapprove of cannabis in smoking form much in the same way and for the same reasons I disapprove of tobacco, and have no wish to see (or rather smell) people smoking it in enclosed public places, and the other thing is that cannabis tend to impair people's ability to drive much more than alcohol (that's an empirical observation), so if cannabis were to be legalized some serious safeguards to prevent people from driving stoned will be needed. But in the end I don't care much either way.

What is really stupid is that because of the fact that cannabis are recreational drugs people (at least in the US) are prevented from using it for legitimate medical reasons, such as countering some effects of chemotherapy and reducing eye pressure in glaucoma patients.

I must admit that I might have also had some kind of a knee-jerk reaction at the thought of a "zero tolerance" event. That's because in my mind it associates quite strongly with the "zero tolerance" programs in American schools where they finally went after the kids who bring over-the-counter medicine like ibuprofen to school. Even though I do in fact realize that the organizers of Ropecon are highly unlikely to chase all the evil ibuprofen users around.

Hangover

Had a very nice evening with Anu and Elaine yesterday, but was feeling a bit unwell in the morning. At first I did not realize what my problem was - I did not drink more than I usually would during such an event - but then I figured out that I went through the regular amount of alcohol in half the regular time. Well, that explains it.

I the morning I was in a condition that can only be healed by raw herring and strawberries with cream, so went to work through Hakaniemen tori to get these, except the cream since am in no condition to whip it by hand. Hakaniemen tori is good for you, or in any case good for me. The smell of a large amount an variety or raw fish excites me in many ways (yes, including sexual - insert your favorite lesbian joke here if you wish) and tends to heal minor effects of alcohol poisoning.

Now feeling a bit better after a raw herring (it's delicious, try it if you haven't) a cup of tea and half a liter of strawberries. Can actually do work.

My muscles are kind of sore too, but I don't think alcohol is at fault. Too much exercise yesterday.

Too much work

Got my ass kicked in Krav Maga in the morning, and now am getting fucked in every hole at work. Not that anything in particular is wrong, it's just that there is a million things to do and they come at me faster than I can do them. Oh well, at least I am getting a fair lot done. But I am tired and need a drink.

Not in a bad mood though: had a very nice though not particularly relaxing weekend, even made it to Joy and Krabak's place at some point and ate all their spring rolls, and today found and fixed a big bug that I was wondering about for a long time now, so feel like a winner. A somewhat tired winner in need of a drink and good company, both of which are scheduled for tonight.

In the world there is business as usual: Al-Qaeda threatening Saudi Arabia and planning chemical attack on Jordan. Ugh. Suddenly I feel sorry for them: they can't even do terrorist profiling since all the normal people there are also Arabs. But they seem to manage somehow: Jordanians did stop that chemical attack.

Our new friend Murr-Murr is visiting in Brussels.

The people who took Italian hostages in Iraq threaten to kill the hostages unless Italians demonstrate against war. Gee, and I though it was bad when our teachers threatened us with bad grades if we don't go to the 1st of May demonstration.

Bad guys need battle cries too

Rampaging across the tarmac, clutching a studded crowbar, cometh Osama Bin Laden! And he gives a mighty bellow:

"Vengeance and goo flow from my veins! I destroy all in my path with God on my side!!"

Lo! Who is that, rampaging across the mountains! It is Saddam Hussein, hands clutching an oversized scalpel! And with a low roar, his voice cometh:

"I'm going to fuck you past the point of no return!!"

Hark! Who is that, sprinting on the terrain! It is Kim Jong Il, hands clutching a studded crowbar! He grunts ominously:

"I'm going to brutalize you backwards in time, and dip you in uranium!"

Who is that, skulking across the candy store! It is Alexander Lukashenka, hands clutching a jeweled meat hammer! He cries mightily:

"By Odin's mighty spear, I sow darkness and discord like the world's mightiest bad-ass!"

Last names revisited

Isosisko writes about changing last names when getting married:

"Miksi miehet ottavat vaimonsa sukunimen harvemmin kuin naiset miehen sukunimen? Miksi kukaan ylipäätään vaihtaa sukunimeään avioituessaan?" ("Why do men take their wife's name less often than women take their husband's name? Why does anyone change theis last name at all when they get married?")

The answers are:

1. The custom of the husband taking the wife's name has not caught on much for precisely the same reason why the custom of the wife taking the husband's name would not have caught on if it had appeared just now: there is not much use in name change unless such change has some emotional value for the person doing the changing.

2. Beats me: probably some quaint local custom. :)

Not coming from a background where women changed their names, it has never been an issue to me - I'd never even consider changing my last name. When I first heard (sometime in 1993) that until 1986 Finland had a law requiring women to change their last name when getting married it had a considerble shock value to me - much like if somebody had told me that until 1986 Finns lived in caves and had no indoor plumbing or electricity.

North Korea

161 dead, about 1300 wounded, and they don't let aid transports from South Korea through to the north.

The trains were carrying ammonium nitrate. Am I just imagining things, or has North Korea just lost its year's supply of rocket fuel oxidizer? Somebody who knows more about chemistry can enlighten me.

Battle cries

Rhia found an addictive toy: a battle cry generator.

Hark! Who is that, striding along the freeway! It is VERA, hands clutching a piece of chainlink fence! She roars thunderously:

"I'm going to fuck you until you are unable to sit properly!!"

And then I decided to try to find out the battle cries of our (US) leaders and presidential candidates:

Skulking through the fields, cutting down all who dare stand in the way using a mighty sword, cometh George W Bush! And he gives a bloodthirsty cry:

"In the name of malice, I slice through beating hearts like a mad dog who can only get madder!!"

Who is that, stalking amidst the freeway! It is John Kerry, hands clutching a bladed baseball bat! And with an ominous howl, his voice cometh:

"I'm going to pummel you until your mom feels it in her womb, and plug you into a power plant!!!"

Striding across the candy store, attacking with a meaty axe, cometh Ralph Nader! And he gives a low bellow:

"I'm going to fuck you so heinously, your screams will shatter lightbulbs world-wide!"

Yea, verily: Who is that, prowling on the icy wasteland! It is John Ashcroft, hands clutching a burning branch! He bellows vengefully:

"Hail the blood-letting! I carve into flesh until my glands are satisfied!!!"

Lo! Who is that, sprinting across the candy store! It is Mitt Romney, hands clutching a thorned whip! He cries homicidally:

"I'm going to turn you into part of my balanced breakfast!!!"

The previous entry

In case anybody is imagining anything else: my previous entry is, exceptionally, an attempt at fiction. It's just a story. If the characters remind you of anyone you met in real life, especially any of my relatives, you are definitely imagining things.

Бася Моисеевна

У Баси Моисеевны заболел живот. Оно, конечно, дело обычное, но по большей части живот, который болел у Баси Моисеевны, принадлежал кому-то другому. В молодости Бася всегда рассказывала своим детям, что у них болит живот, что те воспринимали как коварный план не покупать им мороженого, так как живот у них, собственно говоря, никогда не болел. С детей она плавно перешла на внуков, поскольку внуки завелись трудами дочери Сары ещё до того, как сын Давид переехал жить отдельно от родителей.

Внуки подросли и не только злобно отказывались от Басиного лечения, но и не давали ей нянчить правнуков. Правнуки росли невоспитанные, и, глядя на внуков, Бася не без основания думала, что яблоко от яблони недалеко падает. Вместо того, чтобы изучать что-нибудь полезное или заниматься физкультурой, внуки всё время читали какие-то книжки и играли в футбол.

Когда внуки выросли и больше не поддавались лечению, на выручку пришел муж. Исаак Абрамович, муж Баси, добровольно сдался на роль больного животом, отчасти для поддержки душевного спокойствия жены, но в основном потому, что ему нравился тот компот из чернослива, который Бася варила и использовала в качестве главного лекарства от живота. Исаак, однако, как это иногда бывает, скончался раньше Баси и оставил её наедине с жестоким миром, который никак не соглашался болеть запором или на худой конец поносом. После этого у самой Баси стал побаливать живот.

Не то что бы Бася была слабоумным симулянтом. У неё действительно всегда слегка не хватало в кишечнике энзим, нужных для переваривания молочных продуктов. В молодости она этого не замечала, но под старость нехватка слегка усилилась и после творога со сметаной Бася действительно чувствовала некоторое жжение и давление в животе, которое она немедленно принимала за рак. От волнения боли усиливались, отчего она начинала ещё больше волноваться.

На этот раз живот прихватило сильнее, чем обычно, и Бася приказала врачам найти рак или какую-нибудь другую устрашающую болезнь немедленно. Врачи очень старались, но никак не могли найти ничего, кроме газов.

Сара и Давид сидели у постели больной, каждый молчаливо обдумывая её лечение. Сара видела, что мать в депрессии, и думала о том, как бы уговорить её принимать антидепрессанты. Давид мечтательно вспоминал методы, которые врачи в Австро-Венгерской военной больнице применяли к солдату Швейку. Между тем Бася рассказывала им, что врачи в Америке плохие и ничего не понимают, что у неё явно рак, что друзья - это пустое, что ей очень одиноко, что в газетах пишут одни сплошные глупости, и их-то слишком мало, и что Сара и Давид, равно как всё их потомство, живут неправильно. Дети привычно кивали. Иногда Бася с ловкостью профессионального ниндзя протягивала свою клюку и ловила ей зазевавшуюся медсестру или врача, приказывая Саре и Давиду допросить, как идёт поиск страшной болезни. Те очень стеснялись, и Бася с огорчением всё больше и больше понимала, что искусство допроса с пристрастием не входит в таланты её детей.

К вечеру ей повезло: удалось изловить настоящего живого переводчика и в течение всего двух часов объяснить ей, что диагноз и лечение необходимы, и немедленно. Переводчица обещала, что всё будет сделано, и Бася с некоторым сожалением отцепила её от клюки.

Через полчаса в палату с улыбкой и пятилитровой клизмой вошла медсестра. Её улыбка показалась им всем чем-то знакомой, но только Саре удалось вспомнить, откуда: из популярной телепередачи "В мире акул". При том, что в передаче при улыбке был обычно ещё и плавник, Сара не поделилась наблюдением с матерью и братом. "Повернитесь-ка на живот," сказала медсестра. Бася надела очки и важно посмотрела на медсестру. Увидев размер клизмы, она вскрикнула, соскочила с постели, оттолкнула медсестру клюкой и ринулась наутёк из больницы, хотя никто кроме Сары и Давида за ней, собственно, не гнался. Дети с трудом поспевали за ней, но на бегу Давид успел победоносно подумать о триумфе Австро-Венгерской медицины.

Nostalgic about finet.sex.

In 1994 finet.sex was an awfully amusing newsgroup. It's really too bad that Google has preserved almost no archives for it from that time.

Mostly it was full of AOLers who all declared that they are all also over 21 and they also want the video. I assume that it started with somebody promising somebody else some porn video if the recipient happens to be over 21, but I have never seen the original message, it was just an endless thread of responses of the "my name is Silly Bugger, I am also over 21, please send me the video" kind.

Besides AOLers there was a bunch of Finns who were making fun of them, sometimes in English but mostly in Finnish. AOLers sometimes wondered about being unable to read Finnish text even with rot13. At some point somebody caught on that it was a foreign language and asked Finns to stop writing in Finnish. Such request, of course, elicited a lot of richly deserved bilingual abuse, and the clueless newbie was explained certain facts of life, for example that finet.* is a Finnish hierarchy. His or her response was that finet.sex is just a sex newsgroup (I assume the wretched creature meant "english-language sex newsgroup") that got placed into a Finnish newsgroup hierarchy by mistake, which of course caused a new round of abuse.

The best moment was in the end of the year, when some unusually bright AOLer from California finally realized that it is indeed a Finnish newsgroup, and wrote an article about how much he loves Finnish women. Especially Pekka Mäkinen. IIRC he even wrote a poem about beautiful Pekka. Much hilarity ensued. After being rejected by the beautiful Pekka the AOLer decided that his second choice of a Finnish woman was me, which also amused everybody present. I thanked him for his interest and told him that I see no point in arranging for sex with a man who lives in California when there are perfectly good men right here in Helsinki, and in general Finnish men are on average the world's prettiest. He greatly praised my patriotism, which caused the next round of giggles.

That was an age of innocence. Then came the age of spam, and every newsgroup with "sex" in its name became a wasteland of advertisement.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Blogger's support people have responded to my complaint and said that this is a general problem with Mozilla-based browsers, and that they are working on it. I guess they'll get it fixed at some point, and till then - just reload the page, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

In the news

Police found more than 200 kg of explosives in Espoo near Vermo hippodrome. No idea yet as to who brought them there and why. Killeri goes there from time to time, and apparently that triggered in me the kind of protective rage that made me feel like disemboweling the guilty party/parties with my bare hands and strangling them slowly with their own bowels. (No, they don't teach us that in Krav Maga. I'd need at least a sharp implement to open their stomachs, and I am not sure whether it's possible to rip people's bowels out with one's bare hands either, but I can give it a good try, and bowels are probably long enough that you can strangle their owner with them without having to detach them... Hmm, maybe I'll leave the punishment to authorities just this time?)

A horrible train explosion in North Korea: so far 54 dead, about 1200 injured, 2000 homes destroyed and 6000 damaged. Apparently a train was carrying mining explosives, but no details are available yet. North Korea usually keeps its disasters secret, and probably would have now, too, except that it happened so close to Chinese border that you could possibly see it from China. China has offered to take the injured into Chinese hospitals, but North Korea proudly refused, which is, again, very familiar to me in an extremely antinostalgic way. Fucking commies.

Blogspot is broken?

Several people have told me lately that blogspot blogs in general and mine in particular look fucked up. if my blog looks fucked up to you, can you please send me a mail or a comment mentioning the time and the browser?

I read my own writings in Konqueror and sometimes in Mozilla, looks OK.

Lies, damn lies and statistics

"Väestörekisterikeskuksen tilastojen mukaan viime vuonna lähes 18 prosenttia avioituneista piti oman sukunimensä. " ("According to the population register, almost 18% of people who got married last year kept their own last name.") Funny, I thought most of them did. Even when there used to be a law demanding that wives take husbands' names about 50% of the people getting married kept their own names. Now it's 59% then.

Yeah, of course I understand what they really meant and so does probably everyone else. But it makes me wonder how many statistical data that is not quite as obvious is presented in a similarly sloppy way.

Krav Maga

Finally dragged my ass there for the first time after the flu. I was really bad, but it was good to start training again. Most of the lesson was sparring, and Nina, with whom I sparred today, kicked my ass all the time, even though I managed to get a few kicks in, too. Having much longer arms and legs helps a lot even if the other person is a lot more skillful.

Nina says that when you kick a man (as opposed to a woman, she thinks) and punch him right in the moment when he is trying to block the kick, the punch will go through. The problem is, it works on me too even though am obviously not a man. I tried to do it on Nina, but don't have the skill of positioning myself right: I kick her and at the same moment notice that I should be punching her right now but am too far away.

Nina is a very good sparring partner, has a lot of good advice, which I am even mostly able to follow.

Boxing gloves have a way of making your hands smell like very old socks. Ugh.

Turns out that when you are testing for the third or fourth level (which means that the problem will not be current for me for at least a year) you get to spar for a few minutes with some really big guru. Scary. Guru will kick my very ungurulike ass.