I went to see "300" yesterday. And I don't think I have ever seen a movie that is so full of macho-bullshit (Dirty Harry might come close), muscular men (Conan might come close), spraying blood (Ummmm.... Kill Bill is a contender here), people getting killed (there are a number of movies that compete in sheer volume of corpses, but I'm not going to start going through them here) and general mayhem. I can understand if some people absolutely loathe this movie, truly I can. But I loved every second of it.
First of all, the movie is beautiful. I think it's the first movie that is filmed (more or less) entirely in front of a greenscreen and (again, more or less) entirely in slow-motion. Some might say it looks cheesy, but... It doesn't.
Second: I really liked the soundtrack. Yes, it was kinda weird of watching an epic movie that is set in ancient Greece, with soundtrack that has electric-guitars (or their electronic counterpart), but it works. The music has balls, and it does a great work at making those gargantuan Spartan brass-balls be even bigger than they are in the movie.
Third: There's something strangely satisfying in a movie that basically consists of hordes of men and beasts hurling them against the spears and swords of muscular Spartans. Is it "intellectual"? Hell no! And it doesn't have to be. One of my coworkers described it as a "two-hour action-scene", which is quite close. Well, there are the moments when the story progresses outside the battlefield, but those are relatively few and far between. And even those scenes usually consist of muscular Spartans being macho.
Fourth: This is a 100% guy-movie. But those unfortunate women that have been dragged to the theater by their husband/boyfriends at least have something to look at. That's right, those muscular Spartans. And even though this is a guy movie, there's relatively little gratious female-nudity in the movie. Well, there is some nudity, but it's not like they used every possible moment to show us naked women. Almost, but not quite.
The point I'm making here is that "300" is not a "good movie" like "Citizen Kane" or "Godfather" is. What it is, is a 100% entertaining movie that is pure joy to watch. And in this day and age, that's quite a good accomplishment. Don't expect to see a movie that makes you think or makes you ponder the meaning of life. What you will get instead is a movie that is just oozing with coolness and kick-ass action. And balls. Huge balls. Made from genuine Spartan brass.
Elections: the day after
Well, it's two days after, but still.
So, what changed? Well, all in all I can be pretty happy with the results. My candidate got through, and Greens managed to get one more seat in the Parliament (15 seats). The Coalition (the mainstream right-wing party, they have been in the opposition recently) got a whopping 10 extra seats. Which is good, since I considered voting for them ;).
Social-Democrats were thoroughly beaten, losing eight seats. Which is good, since the party and it's leaders were arrogant and obnoxious. And they were just about the only party that resorted to mud-slinging in their campaign. They won't be in the next government, that's more or less certain, thus ending their 12 years in the government.
The biggest party is still the Center Party, but they lost four seats when compared to previous elections. They currently have 51 seats out of 200, whereas the Coalition has 50. So it's pretty tight. Social-Democrats plummetted down to 45.
So it seems that we will get a Center-Right government, aided by the Swedish People's Party (they are ALWAYS in the government) and propably Greens. Not too shabby.
Other relevant things: There are more women in the parliament than ever before. 42% of MP's are now women, up from 37%
So, what changed? Well, all in all I can be pretty happy with the results. My candidate got through, and Greens managed to get one more seat in the Parliament (15 seats). The Coalition (the mainstream right-wing party, they have been in the opposition recently) got a whopping 10 extra seats. Which is good, since I considered voting for them ;).
Social-Democrats were thoroughly beaten, losing eight seats. Which is good, since the party and it's leaders were arrogant and obnoxious. And they were just about the only party that resorted to mud-slinging in their campaign. They won't be in the next government, that's more or less certain, thus ending their 12 years in the government.
The biggest party is still the Center Party, but they lost four seats when compared to previous elections. They currently have 51 seats out of 200, whereas the Coalition has 50. So it's pretty tight. Social-Democrats plummetted down to 45.
So it seems that we will get a Center-Right government, aided by the Swedish People's Party (they are ALWAYS in the government) and propably Greens. Not too shabby.
Other relevant things: There are more women in the parliament than ever before. 42% of MP's are now women, up from 37%
Space-debris and elections....
...what do they have in common? Both are happening in Finland.
That's right, I saw some space-debris falling from the sky! I was just stepping out of a bus, when I saw something in the sky. Thinking it was just a passenger-jet (which are numerous around here), I didn't think much of it. But when I saw it, I instantly thought "If that's an airliner, it has disintegrated mid-flight". It looked like what Columbia looked like when it disintegrated during re-entry. But, as opposed of being white, this war yellow/red (like flame). There were several fragments visible, and the whole spectacle lasted for just a few seconds.
Other thing going on over here is the elections. Yes, politicians suck, but all in all, things aren't as bad in Finland as they could be. I mean that we have several parties to choose from, instead of being required to pick between "evil" and "incompetent". There are three major parties, representing mainstream right (The Coalition), center (The Center Party) and left (Social-democrats), each with around 20-25% popularity. Then we have the a bit more radical left with around 10% popularity, and the Greens with similar figures. Then there are few smaller parties with around 5% popularity (a bit more radical right, the Swedes and the Bible-thumbers). The category "Other" has maybe combined 2% popularity and it includes parties like "Independence-party" and "Liberals". It also includes three left-wing parties.
And here's where it gets interesting. We have "The Workers Party", "The Finnish Communistic Workers Party" and "The Finnish Communistic Party". Um, does any of that make any sense? What's the difference between the three? Is it like one is communistic, whereas the other two are merely socialistic? Or are they divided along whether they are Leninist, or Marxist-Leninist? Is it really so that the leaders of Communistic Party and Communistic Workers Party (the Workers Party is a new party, haven't seen them in previous elections) never thought about merging their parties? And the weird thing is that the left-wing party with 10% popularity was actually formed in late-eighties/early-nineties by merging the socialistic and communistic parties in Finland in to one. It's like when one left-wing party gets "eliminated", two parties sprung up to take it's place.
EDIT: I just checked. It's actually "The Finnish Communistic Party" and "The Communistic Workers Party". Making the situation even more strange that it was before. I changed the names to the post.
That's right, I saw some space-debris falling from the sky! I was just stepping out of a bus, when I saw something in the sky. Thinking it was just a passenger-jet (which are numerous around here), I didn't think much of it. But when I saw it, I instantly thought "If that's an airliner, it has disintegrated mid-flight". It looked like what Columbia looked like when it disintegrated during re-entry. But, as opposed of being white, this war yellow/red (like flame). There were several fragments visible, and the whole spectacle lasted for just a few seconds.
Other thing going on over here is the elections. Yes, politicians suck, but all in all, things aren't as bad in Finland as they could be. I mean that we have several parties to choose from, instead of being required to pick between "evil" and "incompetent". There are three major parties, representing mainstream right (The Coalition), center (The Center Party) and left (Social-democrats), each with around 20-25% popularity. Then we have the a bit more radical left with around 10% popularity, and the Greens with similar figures. Then there are few smaller parties with around 5% popularity (a bit more radical right, the Swedes and the Bible-thumbers). The category "Other" has maybe combined 2% popularity and it includes parties like "Independence-party" and "Liberals". It also includes three left-wing parties.
And here's where it gets interesting. We have "The Workers Party", "The Finnish Communistic Workers Party" and "The Finnish Communistic Party". Um, does any of that make any sense? What's the difference between the three? Is it like one is communistic, whereas the other two are merely socialistic? Or are they divided along whether they are Leninist, or Marxist-Leninist? Is it really so that the leaders of Communistic Party and Communistic Workers Party (the Workers Party is a new party, haven't seen them in previous elections) never thought about merging their parties? And the weird thing is that the left-wing party with 10% popularity was actually formed in late-eighties/early-nineties by merging the socialistic and communistic parties in Finland in to one. It's like when one left-wing party gets "eliminated", two parties sprung up to take it's place.
EDIT: I just checked. It's actually "The Finnish Communistic Party" and "The Communistic Workers Party". Making the situation even more strange that it was before. I changed the names to the post.
Check the settings!
It was snowing a bit yesterday, so I decided to go take some pictures outside. Besides, I had bought a stand for the camera and I wanted to try it out. I only took half a dozen pictures, before heading back in. And no, the pictures were not any good. But I did notice that you can turn a crap picture in to a bit better picture with some cropping and tweaking. But the fact that your white balance is off doesn't really help. You see, I have the tendency to take the camera and take some pictures, only to notice afterwards that the white balance-settings were all wrong. Note to self: ALWAYS check the settings on the camera before you take any pictures! And if it's snowing, take an umbrella so you could at least try to cover the camera from the snow!
Working-life
Work has been pretty good. Busy, but good. It's great when you get a relatively complex task to do, and you singlehandedly do it. I was asked to arrange some Excel-training. I have done it before, and it's a good thing to see that practice does make one better. Before it was quite tedious and difficult to arrange, but this time everything just flowed in to place. I got the trainer, I got the location, I got the hotel-room for the trainer, and I got the participants.
Working-life
Work has been pretty good. Busy, but good. It's great when you get a relatively complex task to do, and you singlehandedly do it. I was asked to arrange some Excel-training. I have done it before, and it's a good thing to see that practice does make one better. Before it was quite tedious and difficult to arrange, but this time everything just flowed in to place. I got the trainer, I got the location, I got the hotel-room for the trainer, and I got the participants.
The problem with people....
...Is that they lose all common sense when they panic. The second problem with people is that they panic way too easily. They start running around screaming "Oh my god, we need to do SOMETHING!".
Bah, humbug!
Bah, humbug!
Freeze!
So, a while ago I complained that the winter in here feels more like autumn. No snow anywhere, and it's not really cold at all. Well, all that changed with a bang (*! We are having around -15 to -25 degrees of coldness in here and there's snow everywhere. And it happened quite fast. Hell, just few days ago we were told in the news that power-companies are lowering their rates, because warm winter has caused energy-consumption to go down. Yesterday we were told that previous records of energy-consumption have been broken due to the coldness. They have actually turned on the reserve power-plants to cope with the demand. All in time-span of few days.
* = Yes, it can get cold with a bang. When temperature drops enough, the water inside trees freeze. When that happens, the trees start making this banging noise, as the frozen water in them expands. The trees do cope with it just fine though.
Yes, I'm keeping my eye out for the pillars of light. No luck yet, though.
* = Yes, it can get cold with a bang. When temperature drops enough, the water inside trees freeze. When that happens, the trees start making this banging noise, as the frozen water in them expands. The trees do cope with it just fine though.
Yes, I'm keeping my eye out for the pillars of light. No luck yet, though.
The sound of silence
So, now that I'm no longer sick, the Mrs. is. It's apparently a infection of the trachea. it was very painful few nights ago, and she (nor I) didn't sleep much. But she now has antibiotics and strong painkillers, so she's managing.
One of the things the infcetion has caused is that she can't talk. She can manage a faint whisper, but that's about it. So she communicates through writing and signs instead. So our household has been quite silent recently.
Related to this: I'm quite pissed at my mother in-law right now. She was the person who gave this to the Mrs. And she also infected her grandfather as well. Quick note: if you are ill, don't go marching around infecting other people! I would guess that the Mrs. has better things to do that to lie in bed crying because her throat feels like it's burning.
One of the things the infcetion has caused is that she can't talk. She can manage a faint whisper, but that's about it. So she communicates through writing and signs instead. So our household has been quite silent recently.
Related to this: I'm quite pissed at my mother in-law right now. She was the person who gave this to the Mrs. And she also infected her grandfather as well. Quick note: if you are ill, don't go marching around infecting other people! I would guess that the Mrs. has better things to do that to lie in bed crying because her throat feels like it's burning.