Eating Muffins in an Agitated Manner

Why Muffins?

Posted by Sari

Most excellent author and translator J. Pekka Mäkelä threw a  meme at us asking why the blog is called "Eating Muffins in an Agitated Manner".

In the last years of the last millenium Jukka and I played around with an idea of a web journal of sorts, something that would have essays and reviews and whatnot, but never got around doing anything about it. What made us take the leap was Jukka's cancer. We had lots of friends both in Finland and abroad, so a blog seemed like a good way of keeping everybody updated on his condition. So four years ago August 2003, we started this thing.

Naming it was surprisingly easy. Wilde's "The Importance of being Earnest" has always been one of my favourite plays, I have a habit of quoting from it almost as much as from Asterix. We were watching the new movie adaptation (With Rupert Everett and Colin Firth), when Jukka suggested that we might coin a name for the blog from one of my favorite scenes: Jack and Algy have been jilted by their sweethearts for pretending to be Ernest, and take the rejection in very different manner. Here is the scene from the classic 1952 version (beginning at 00.30).

We liked the symbolism of the name, of muffins representing life and the manner of eating the manner of living. We liked the juxtaposition of frivolous and serious, it resonated both to our own situation and to the fact that Wilde's most sparkling, shining play was written at a time his life was turning into a nightmare. And we liked the mental image of stuffing your face with muffins in agitation, so very unlike Algy. So that is why we have long unwieldy and silly name for our blog :-)

Kummallisia tapoja

Posted by Sari

Vapaapäivä vihdoin! Kaikki roikkuneet työt on tehty ja väikkärikin jaksaa vähän paremmin kuin pitkään aikaan joten nyt on aikaa vuoleskella. Koulunpenkki haastoi meemiin viidestä oudosta tavasta, joten tässä tulee:

1. Suolaa ei ei ei EI saa antaa kädestä käteen, jos niin tekee tulee antajasta ja vastaanottajasta vihamiehiä. Tämä taikauskoni on herättänyt vuosikausia hilpeyttä ystäväpiirissä ja piristänyt lukuisia krapula-aamiaisia urbaanin heimomme mökkimatkoilla kun rva. Polvinen huutaa kurkku suorana jos joku erehtyy sirotinta ojentelemaan asettamatta sitä pöydälle. Isoäidiltäni olen tämän oppinut ja niin syvällä selkäytimessä uskomus on että en usko että pääsen siitä koskaan eroon.

2. Kaikkialla on kiva lukea. Jopa saunassa. Mutta ehkä ei liimasiteisiä kirjoja kuitenkaan. Joskus kokeilin halvalla pokkarilla ja kostea kuuma irroitti sivut toisistaan vallan pätevästi. Nidotut lehdet ja sidotut kirjat joiden kostuminen ei ole katastrofi sen sijaan...

3 Minä yritän aina kulkea Helsingissä maan alla niin paljon kuin mahdollista. Ei haittaa vaikka matkaa tulisi vähän enemmänkin kunhan Metron, yhdystunneleiden ja parkkihallien avulla pääsee navigoimaan läpi keskustan pistämättä nenäänsä ulkoilmaan.

4. Olen kaniinien maailmanvallankumouksen pääarkkitehti. Miettikää sitä.

5. Tämä on HerraHoon ja minun yhteinen mutta pannaan tähän kuitenkin: Ruokakaupassa on kiva tanssia. Arki kirkastuu kummasti kun valssaa makaroonihyllyn ohitse kohti koiranruokia.

OK, so a guy asks me: "Did you take a bath today?" and I said: "Why, is there one missing"? Wocka Wocka Wocka!

Posted by jukkahoo

OK, I occasionally do them memes and may even comment of those on some blogs/LJ's, but I seldom see the need to post them here at Muffins. Here's an exception. He was always my favourite Muppet and I'm darned glad to turn up as HIM!

Here's to Fozzie and Clyde!

You are Fozzie Bear. You are caring and love your friends as if they were family.  For only they will put up with your stupid jokes.
FAVORITE EXPRESSION: "Wocka! Wocka!"
FAVORITE AUTHOR: Gags Beasley, comedy writer
HOBBIES: Telling jokes, dodging tomatoes
QUOTE: "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
NEVER LEAVES HOME WITHOUT: His joybuzzer, his whoopee cushion and Clyde, the rubber chicken.

What Muppet are you?
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Well, I like Jon Stewart so...

Posted by Sari

the Wit (52% dark, 26% spontaneous, 16% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean you're pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most effort to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion. Also, you probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 83% on dark You scored higher than 0% on spontaneous You scored higher than 16% on vulgar

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Music meme with a twist

Posted by Sari

Blogmemes have changed into chain-letters, when did this happen? Why did I not get the memo? How annoying. The whole idea of a meme is to see how it spreads viral-like in a community. Directing it like a chain-letter takes all the fun out of the idea. So I just decided to kidnap the latest music meme and change it a bit. Instead of givin you six of my favourite songs (how do you do that anyhow, my “favourites” playlist has at least 200 songs on it at the moment), I give you six of my favourite covers.

I have always liked cover versions. Maybe because my first real love-affair with music was with classical music where one of the geat joys is to own both Furtwängler's and Harnoncourt's Beethoven's Fifth, and love them both for being very different.

The range in classical music is of course much narrower than with modern covers which are all over the place compared to the originals. The really bad ones are usually just add a techno-beat to 80s pop-classic, but some are really innovative and different. And even the not so good ones give air-time to old songs and make them familiar to new generations. Anyhow, here are my favourites at the moment:

Sid Vicious: My Way. I suppose it is a bit sad that this is a nostalgic trip down to memory lane, but it is. Even so, listening Sid maligning what for me was Sinatras signature tune is nothing short of brilliant.

Johnny Cash: Personal Jesus. Cash did a lot of interesting covers in his last recordings, most famous of which is brilliant version of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”, but I like this Mode cover even more. That honkytonk piano in the backround just makes the song.

Love And Rockets: Ball of Confusion. This is originally a funky Temptations song and has also been covered by Duran Duran and Neville Brothers but Love and Rocets extremely tight and energetic version is my favourite.

Frou Frou: Holding out for a Hero. Bonnie Tyler’s last big hit was from the soundtrack of the movie Kevin Bacon will never live down, this Frou Frou cover is also from soundtrack, this time from Shreck 2. And I love it, even if the female vocalist utilizes what Koulunpenkki’s husband calls ayrshire technique

Shankaar-Eshan-Loy: Pretty Woman. Now this can’t come as a surprise for anyone who reads this blog. The Bhangra version of Pretty Woman from Kal Ho Naa Ho.

October Hill: Fake Plastic Trees. This is somehow lazier and sweeter than the Radiohead original, though it does not aim to wildly different. It is interesting how in most of the Radiohead covers I have heard the biggest change has been to substitute Thom's raw voice with female vocalist. Sometimes it works like here, sometimes the song really needs that edge to work.

No surprises there

Posted by Sari

J.R.R. Tolkien: Lord of the Rings. You are
entertaining and imaginative, creating whole
new worlds around yourself. Well loved, you
have a whole league of imitators, none of which
is quite as profound as you are. Stories and
songs give a spark of joy in the middle of your
eternal battle with the forces of evil.


Which literature classic are you?
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