Eating Muffins in an Agitated Manner

To Lappland!

Posted by jukkahoo

We're off to Lappi to see some reindeers and hopefully eat a few, too. Have a very nice New Year's Day and eat lots of nakki and perunasalaatti.

Hyvää Joulua!

Posted by jukkahoo & Sari

Call it what you will:

Seasoned Greetings!
Happy Holidays!
Fröliche Weihnachten!
Merry Xmas!
Glad Jul!
Joyeux Noël!
Kivaa Kwanzaa!
Hauskaa Hanukkaa!
Mahtavaa Midwinter Solsticea!
Yauzaa Yulea!

Happy anyhow's!

We're having a very trad and normal Xmas: Eve with Sari's parents and Day with my mother. Then it's soon 27th and off we go to Lappland to see what the weather is like there and if Santa truly spends the following days after the busybusybusy Xmas at Hullu Poro.

What he said. Me, I have tried to forget it is Christmas as Christmas eaquals a deadline. But even so, have a good one guys.

The pic of four-handed Satan Claws is ripped from excellent French site called nooSFere where you can find thousands of fun scans of covers from Sf to whatever. One of these days I'll have to link some other fun sites like it since this is just cool service provided by some industrious and dedicated people, all over the world.

KINKKUA!!!
LANTTULAATIKKOA!!!
SUKLAATA!!!
PUNAISIA OMENOITA!!!
YÖLLISIÄ KINKKUVOILEIPIÄ!!!
KINKKUA!!!

Seasoned (mostly jeera and coriander, with some chilli, turmeric and ginger) greetings

Posted by jukkahoo

Older every day. Yawn.

I had great time and I hope all you who had both the time and possibility to come and sample my Indian experiments we're happy too. Nice to have seen all of you. And yes, thank you for all those prezzies. You really shouldn't have and so on. Much appred.

I tried some recipies I've never done before. And some will never do again. The quick and easy vegetable pakoras weren't particularily happening, must think of some other batter to deep-fry stuff. Bite-sized bhajis were dead good and the veggie koftas weren't too bad either. I think I may have been the only one to appreciate the anchovies dip? Yum. Chicken Bhuna was a success in my book. And yeah, I forgot - it was turkey, not chicken. Saturnuksen sotavaltias (The Warlord of Saturn to you non-Finns, click the link, there's pictures!) was a rousing hit. Ylva summed it up best by saying she's stunned. More or less. At least the audience was laughing at mostly right places.

The day before I drank most of Kirjava's book-opening party Xmas bheers. Thanks. And the book looks Grrrrrrreat. Have you not bought the Kuninkaiden koitos (being the 2nd part of George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire -saga) already? What are you waiting for, hop-hop to it! All the best for your lot, Satu, Taika and Jan!

Happy holidays!

37

Posted by jukkahoo

Shadaim!

Viikon päästä maanantaina on jälleen kerran se päivä, jolloin meikämandoliino kokee järisyttäviä kasvukipuja ja muuttuu taas yhä tiiviimmin ikämiesten joukkoon. Syystä tai toisesta ajattelin kaikesta huolimatta pitää asiaa jonkinlaisen "kakkukahvin" arvoisena, joten jos lukijoillamme ei ole mitään raflaavampaa suunnitteilla, niin olette tervetulleita juhlistamaan kyseistä tapahtumaa

Maanantaina 20. 12. kello 17 eteenpäin

Aikomukseni on aloittaa klassisesti eli lyödä DVD-soittimen lokeroon tuorein Flamemountain-tuotantoyhtiön produktio. Saturnuksen sotavaltias alkaa siinä viiden pintaan ja kestää kohtuullisen tarkkaan 45 minuuttia. Saa tulla katsomaan, vaikka olisi jo nähnytkin! Sen jälkeen on enemmän tai vähemmän vapaata seurustelua. Sauna pysynee kiinni.

Ruokaa on tarjolla, mutta ehkei kuitenkaan kannata jättää esim. lounasta väliin. Tai mistä minä tiedän, selavii. Tällä kertaa en ajatellut sotkea sushia, salaattia ja shiliä keskenään, vaan kokeilla josko saisin aikaan jotain hilpeitä intialaisia tuotoksia! Hieman jotain tulisempaa, sekä jonkin verran jotain leppoisampaa, mutta aivan erityisesti erilaisia makuja ja eksoottisia tuoksuja. Juomapuoli on omavastuullinen ja jos joku on kivalla päällä, niin saa tietenkin tuoda omia särpimiäkin. Kunhan teema säilyy. Lihaa ja kasviksia - ja kaikkea siltä väliltä. Yritän muistaa HYLAn ja ainakin pähkinäallergiat, mutta muiden kanssa on sitten hieman niin ja näin eli kannattaa kysyä mitä ruoassa on, ennen kuin sitä maistaa.

Jos on jo joululomalla, niin pois ei potkita viimeisten julkisten lähdön aikaan, mutta mahdollisten ulkopaikkakuntalaisten majoituksen tarpeesta kannattaa vihjaista etukäteen. Pääkaupunkilaisethan osaavat taxin numeron, jotta pääsevät kotiinsa nukkumaan.

Tervetuloa!

Mail delivery failure

Posted by jukkahoo

I seem to have a fairly large mail delivery problem. I keep getting all kinds of notions and memorandas, warnings and failure notices from all over the world. Apparently my emails aren't getting thru. Darn. And I really wanted to let Ukembi Tsakalulu (or was it Stakalala?) to know... that... arm, now what was it? Anyway, Rhonda also seems to have difficulties with my emails, as do surprisingly many Russian or Czech operators, who have sent me at least three hundreds notifications during last two months. I'd really like to know what the problem is, since there must be something really important going on.

I read a good book this week. It's called City of Pearl by Karen Traviss. Good alien characters (especially these wonderfully reserved wess'hars), plenty good plot and full, rounded story of respect for other lifeforms, of rules and vice versa. But the main thing is her character building. These people are real, flesh and bone, capable of all kinds of things in the name of whatnot; good and bad etc. And she does it with little nuances and small gestures (and some larger ones). Traviss ei väännä asioita rautalangasta. (It's a great Finnish idiom, unfortunately it doesn't translate that well - anyone care to try?). Her first novel and apparently the first of a proposed (guess?)-parter. Holds its own and needs no sequels, but if she can hold her level of writing I'm going to carry on with her. There is a fairly interesting interview from on her own website, from which I'll just steal a bit:

Interviewer: Would you say the golden rule, of treating others as you would be treated, is something you've ended up exploring, without offering simplistic answers?

Karen Traviss: Yes, and it's about realising the consequences of what you're doing. We're all too often unconnected to the consequences of what we do and the way we live, from the dangerous insularity of driving in a cocoon of a car to where our waste goes. It's also about exploring the really intense emotions that we have. Revenge: will it really make you feel better? Personally, I'd go for it with a pickaxe, but some of my characters do and find it doesn't help. Does intent and motive matter? That's a big theme in all the wess'har wars books, because the wess'har don't care what you think or say, only what you do. "I didn't mean to hurt you," cuts no ice with a wess'har, and that has its own dodgy logic loops. We live in a society where pleas in mitigation make a difference to how we feel about the perpetrator. No, I don't offer simplistic answers, because there aren't any. The best you can do is let the reader have a think about what the answer might be for them, and - more importantly - that it might be different for someone else.

Oh. I went and saw Alexander.

Troy was bad. This was abysmal. Can't really say which one was worse, but I tend to sway towards Alexander (as the less bad one) since at least it did try to get things right. Failing gloriously (not in a good way, unfortunately), but at least they had the decendy to portray ancient Greeks as sexually free-minded, however wrong this may be according to modern Greeks. The setpieces are magnificent, level of detail is pure eyecandy (can't say for sure how historically accurate, but it looks good though), large fight-scenes (especially Gaugamela) are waaaaaa-ay better than in Troy and Val Kilmer is good. Less said about Cryboy-Colin and Mrs Botox-Lips, the better.