lhc…apocalypse…bla bla

since all the news channels have been buzzing about this for some time i am not going to write about it. let me just say that i really am annoyed by all the bloody ignorant fools who think they know everything better than the scientists working on it; if all these people were swallowed by a black hole i’m sure the average iq on the planet would surge.

well, now for the fun stuff:

some of you might know that i’ve always wanted to be a tractor driver. ever since i was in kindergarden. most kids wanted fancy jobs: firefighter, policeman, cosmonaut (it was still during communism), but i’ve always wanted to drive a tractor. you can’t really tell from the picture, but i am actually holding a chinese sword in my hand. comes in handy against zombie hordes or rabid sheep :p

don’t be afraid that the world will end today, it’s already tomorrow in australia.

katja, the wise and impatient

iceland seem a much colder place lately. partly because i have cut my hair really short, but mostly because my flatmate (and self appointed goddess) has left for finland – also the fact that winter is slowly creeping up on us might play a role in it.

but before i get too melodramatic, let my just say that this post is dedicated to you katja (i also get to show off my new hairstyle). i wish you courage and best of luck on your journeys and i leave you with an arab proverb:

”who lives sees much. who travels sees more.”

kill it with fire

i was about to light a candle (for a romantic candle-lit midnight snack – can’t really call it dinner) when i noticed the name of the matches i was using. they are called “titan matches”. the surprising part is that rather than being named after the mythological figure (denoting strength) they are named after saturn’s moon (which in turn is named after the mythological figure).

having a brand of matches named after an astronomical object is cool enough in itself, but the box also featured a rather funny warning label telling us that “fire kills children” (i suppose once you grow up you get used to it). and to top it all, these aren’t the cheap, unreliable matches made in china, no sir, they are made in india. cool

no post

t: katsuba came!
k: no, i did not!

my brother's wedding

t: it happened about a week ago, but I’ve only now got to write about it. i was somewhat shocked at first. i have always expected my brother to marry before i did, however this was rather sudden. must have been love at first sight. anyway, katja’s sister is all right and this was a decision my brother had to make himself.

k: the ceremony was rather dull though. everybody was wearing black and all that. even if it was a jewish wedding, i’ve expected a bit more color; it just felt like somebody had died. you were happy though, i remember that you were smiling.

t: well, i was (and still am) genuinely happy for my brother. i’m also happy for your sister. i still feel i should get to know her better.

k: yes, well it seems i too should get to know my sister better. anyway it was quite a small ceremony with just your relatives around.

t: but i think i saw at least your mom attending with her spanish dress and everything though i was really surprised they decided to hold the ceremony at your grandmother’s. i kind of expected a synagogue or something.

k: well, we have no synagogues in sieppijärvi plus we had a rabbi anyway, so that makes it official enough, doesn’t it?

t: it was also kind of unexpected how at the end of the ceremony, after my brother had read that passage from the old testament and when your sister was about to read from the book as well, the rabbi told her he had a small collection of finnish bibles as well and she could use one of those. but by the way, your sister is lutheran, isn’t she?

k: hmm, i suppose she is but apparently nowadays one can’t kind of tell. i wonder what they’ll do about the kids’ religious education when the time comes. well they’ll just have to fight it out, i guess.

t: so does this make you my sister-in-law?

k: i’m afraid it does.

t: neat.


k: what a weird dream.
t: what’s more weird is that i’m narrating your dream in first person on my blog.
k: at least i got to correct my lines.

once upon a time… in the shower

what tibi had to say:

it is said a picture is worth a thousand words, however , i still believe these warrant some explanation. we were getting ready to make some waffles, my flat mate and i, around 1 am, cause what better time is there for waffles? we were going through her recipe book when i saw this picture of two children standing under the shower with an umbrella and i instantly knew we just had to try this out. since katja is, just like me, a bit more than normal, she didn’t take too much convincing. taking the photos themselves was a bit tricky, but as you can see we’ve managed (k: of course since we had a physics student and an engineer’s daughter to figure it out). it was lots of fun and i can wholeheartedly recommend it to anybody interested in such crazy things. oh, and the waffles were also great.


but what katja had to add???(wow finally we got to the interesting part – me:)

children! beware of drinking too much tap water or otherwise you’ll end up on the net faster than you can ask yourselves: actually whose brilliant idea was this? but yes, i truly believe in encouraging limit breaking behaviour though without my camera man (who probably already regrets letting me terrorize his blog – but c’mon, the man asked for it) i wouldn’t have any proof i can actually get drunk on water. but back to the shower… it’s a really a wet place you know. ;)

ja muuten viki: tervetuloa sukuun!

coming soon: well you never know…
stay tuned, we have no ads!
(except if you want to buy this “what really happened? read the true story…” well too bad, because we’re not selling any you nosy bastards!)

anime top 6

some time ago my brother asked me about my top 5 anime. that's quite a difficult question to answer. it gets easier if one breaks it down by genre. so, here is my anime top 6 by genre.(because 5 is just plain boring)

i didn't rate the titles in a certain category as best or worst, i've just arranged them in random order (meaning I didn’t arrange them at all); it was difficult enough to decide which anime to keep and which to drop, let alone think about ranking them.

i have only considered anime i have seen from start to finish (that's why higurashi and mnemosyne didn't make the list). many of these titles fit in more than one category, however i have included them in the category i've felt mostly represented it. i have deliberately left out the hentai category because i don't want to turn my blog into a /d/ thread. so there you have it:

action:

- ninja scroll

- ghost in the shell (1995)

- cowboy beebop

- planetes

- black lagoon

- mononoke hime
[princess mononoke]



drama/thriller/psychological:

- shin seiki evangelion
[neon genesis evangelion]

- perfect blue

- serial experiments lain

- haibane renmei

- kostsu hyaku monogatari
[hundred stories]

- ima, sokoni iru boku
[now and then, here and there]



light/slice of life/social:

- toki wo kakeru shoujo
[the girl who leapt through time]

- genshiken

- nhk ni youkoso!
[welcome to the nhk]

- spice and wolf

- juuni kokki
[the twelve kingdoms]

- kumo no mukou, yakusoku no basho
[the place promised in our early days]



comedy:

- flcl

- azumanga daioh

- manabi straight!

- golden boy

- ippatsu kiki musume
[miss critical moment]

- suzumiya haruhi no yuutsu
[the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya]



short:

- blood: the last vampire

- kanojo to kanojo no neko
[she and her cat]

- memories (part 3: cannon fodder)

- animatrix (part: beyond)

- umi ga kikoeru
[ocean waves]

- hoshi no koe
[voices of a distant star]

Towel Day

the 25^th of may was is the international towel day, it commemorates the late douglas adams, the author of the hitchhiker´s guide to the galaxy. on this day, his fans all over the world carry around a towel wherever they go. why a towel, you ask, well, a towel is probably the most important item a galactic hitchhiker can carry:

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

in the above images i'm brandishing my blue towel next to the solfar, the sun voyager - a steel sculpture by jon gunnar arnason, resembling a viking ship, close to reykjavik's city center.