My face(s)

This is the best site I've found for a while!!! Check out the Face Transformer. And take a look at my 10 faces too... :D

Remake of a remake - but by whom?

In 1984, Ridley Scott directed the famous Apple Macintosh Commercial. In 2004, for the 20th anniversary, Apple digitally added an iPod on Anya Major and launched a remake of the ad. Now, there's a mysterious remake of the remake with Hillary Rodham Clinton as Big Brother circling the internet. Barack Obama's campaign people claim they have nothing to do with it. Well, who has then?

the original 1984 Apple Macintosh ad
the remake with iPod
the Clinton/Obama mystery ad

(via MIT Advertising Lab, San Francisco Chronicle, and MilkandCookies)

Kokoomus and Greens win + it's snowing

Kokoomus wins big time and also Greens get one more seat in the parliament. Yippee!!! :)
AND it started snowing again. What is this...? I want my spring back!!

Fish news!

I made some changes in the fish tank. The photos show also how well the plants have grown!

Election day

Today is the day of election of the parliament. I just came from casting my vote. This is probably (I'm not 100 % sure) the first time I am voting on the actual election day. I usually vote in the advance voting period just to be sure I will not miss the thing. As you know, I am the moving kind, so I can never be sure if I will be home for the election. But today I was.
Picking my candidate was a bit difficult, since this is the first time I'm voting in Tampere region and I don't know the candidates here too well. Actually this is the second time I get to vote as a Tampere citizen, but the last time it was the presidential election and the whole country was one big electoral district. And in fact, I cast my vote for Sauli Niinistö in Singapore, not in Tampere.
Today it was tough choice for me as always between finding a green and liberal
Kokoomus candidate or a right-wing Green League candidate. A very tough choice.

Spring!

It is getting more spring-like in Tampere but even more so in Helsinki. In both cities the temperature has been hovering around 6–8 °C (42–49 F) and it's been sunny. It's hard to spot snow in Helsinki anymore. I was so excited about spring and the plan was to take a very springy picture but I ended up shooting DDR in November...

Where's the snow?!

Where's the snow? Is winter really over now? It looked a lot different just one month ago. The winter in Tampere this year was really short I'll say:
January 16
January 22
February 3

Leaving Oulu

We took the pendolino back home to Tampere.

My old home

The purpose of our trip to Oulu was to go through Dad's stuff in a warehouse in Haukipudas. On our way back, we decided to drive by the house where Juho and I were born. We moved out in the summer of 1984. Seeing the old house was strange – the house looked so small!

In Oulu

This weekend we are in Oulu. Riksu and I arrived on Friday night and my brother Juho today in the afternoon.
I spent lovely 3 hours with Marja, with whom not 3 or 30 hours is ever enough, because we always engage ourselves in a never-ending discussion.
In the evening Riksu, Juho and I went to JP's and then headed to the centre to enjoy the night-life. The night-life scene in Oulu has not changed much for a few years, so we went to our regular spots Never grow old and 45.

I look like a man

I had to try out the famous Naamavaalikone (it's a candidate matcher for the parliamentary elections based on the shape of your face). The result: I look like a man.

Panda sneeze

My friend Konrad sent me this hilarious panda sneeze video. I have now watched it about 10 times and I'm still laughing... :)
By the way, if you don't know Hana Koala, check out this one, too. When I was in Kyoto about one year ago, I fell in love with one car insurance TV commercial. It's funny how all Japanese commercials look like they were made for children, because they are so "Kawaii" (that is cute in English). If this doesn't cheer you up, nothing does!

Nettle crêpes and lingonberries

I stayed at my grand-aunt Tetti's as usual. She made one of my favourite dishes: nettle crêpes. (They go very well with lingonberries.)
PS. Yep, I know this is not the first time I write about nettle crêpes, but the first time this year anyway: 03.10.2006, 15.12.2005, 05.11.2004

Old sewing cotton

I had to patch up a small rip in my jeans. Most of my sewing stuff is more than 50 years old! The reason is that my Mom's mother, who died before I was born, had her own dressmaker's business and apparently an endless supply of yarn.

Risto-Matti Hannukainen

I got a bill for the annual membership fee from Hannukaisten sukuseura (Hannukainen genealogy association). It's seems that they have decided that Riksu took my name and not the other way around. :)

Chicken-potato casserole

We cooked one of my current favourites: chicken-potato casserole. Riksu's mom makes something like this, but we developed the recipe by adding blue cheese, and now it is delicious.
The recipe (in Finnish, sorry):
400 g kanan filesuikaleita
1–2 pussia peruna-sipuli-suikaleita
ruokakermaa
sinihomejuustoa
valkosipulia
mausteita (mustapippuri, timjami, basilika, rosmariini jne.)
Paista kanan filesuikaleet pannulla. Kaada paistovuokaan peruna-sipuli-suikaleet ja kanasuikaleet. Murenna joukkoon sinihomejuustoa ja pieneksi silputtua valkosipulia sekä heitä mukaan mausteita maun mukaan. Lorauta kaiken päälle ruokakerma ja laita vuoka uuniin (225 °C) noin tunniksi. Kannattaa välillä vilkuilla, ettei pinta pala. Jos pinta alkaa ruskistua liikaa, laita päälle folio.

PS. I have decided to use coloured thumbnail photos from now on.

Fish parade

I spent almost one hour hunting my fishes with a camera. There's now a photo of each species. A much bigger job would be trying to take a photo of each fish, since there are 28 of them all together:
1 Bristlenose Pleco called Rousku
4 Otos
5 Skunk cory
5 Bronze cory
3 Bolivian Rams
10 Flame tetras

Progress on my fish tank

The plants in my aquarium have grown a bit already. There used to be nothing on the back of the tank, so you could see the wall through the tank. A while ago I put some dark green cardboard in the back, but I'm not sure, if it's working... What do you think?

Fog

The temperature has risen and it now hovers around 0 °C, which is probably the cause of the fog we experience tonight in Kaleva.

Salmiakki

I love salmiakki, and I love the new Fazer salmiakki mix. I had to buy one bag for my train ride back home. Although it can be tiresome to travel between Tampere and Helsinki every week, I quite like the Thursday night on the train: There's never too many people, I'm always pretty tired, I usually read something not work-related, and very often fall asleep.