Cheap Gatwick – Helsinki Flights and other stories

Great News: In the beginning of November Easyjet starts to fly between Gatwick and Helsinki and the prices are cheap. A return flight costs around fifty quid, when booked in advance. If you’ve ever thought about a trip to Finland, this autumn is good time to do that. You might even get a native guide to show you around

Nintendo DS bought from Bangkok has turned to a huge hit with my four-year-old nephew Oiva. Hours pass by and the little guy just can’t get enough of Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy and Lego Indiana Jones, The Original Adventures. The strength of both games is that these cute Lego characters have unlimited lives in their puzzle adventures. Once a story (level) has been played through, it gets unlocked and can be accessed again and again. Nimble auntie is still needed to unlock the stories the first time, but it looks like she won’t be needed much longer… I watch in awe how quickly a kid learns; Legos, Star Wars and gaming combined, I support this hobby full heartedly.

Learning the basics of Nintendo DS

Sudoku and Spanish language games on DS will be tested with my 60-year old mum Kaija some time soon.

Talking about mum, all the apple trees in Laukkoski are bursting and she has become proper hardcore in the neverending process of juice making. When passing the kitchen and her bubbling cauldron, I witnessed these labeled bottles and couldn’t stop laughing:

Liian makea omppumehu

Liian makea omppumehu, ‘Too sweet apple juice’. I pointed out her peculiar labeling, but she didn’t find it funny at all. Instead, she informed that

When I mix the content of these bottles with the previous set of liian hapan omppumehu ‘too bitter apple juice’, the resulted combination will be just perfect.

(Yes, she did a degree in chemistry in the University. One of her wisdoms is: “Everything is chemistry”, which seems to answer pretty much every question I’ve ever asked her.)

Another wise Finnish woman, a priest and journalist Hilkka Olkinuora was recently interviewed in Teema for her new book Elä Ihmeessä! Her revolutionary idea of “On OK olla tavis“, ‘it’s ok to be average’ is refreshing; Western culture emphasises people’s uniqueness and individuality and even though it is encouraging to think that everyone is special, it also increases the pressure to succeed and the fear of failing. Olkinuora’s viewpoint is both comforting and merciful.

Less comforting are the results of a research by Professor Adrian North of Heriot-Watt University that link music tastes to personality. “The aim of this survey is to investigate the importance of musical preference in different aspects of everyday life. We also would like to see if it can have an influence on one’s significant relationships.” Go here to participate in the online survey.

Roi recently defined my favourite music genre as nynnymetalli, ‘wimp/loser metal’. The research defines metal fans (rather accurately to Roi’s definition) as:

Low self-esteem, creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, at ease

No one has ever called me ‘not hard working’, ‘not outgoing’ ‘gentle’ or ‘at ease’. I am very much the opposite of all those attributes. I go through the results looking for a more suitable music genre for the hard working and outgoing people and the result is – country and western! Curse and damnation!

P.S. The task took couple of years to complete, but I finally finished watching the whole seven seasons of Deep Space Nine: 176 episodes, 45 minutes each adds up to 132 hours or five and half days of Star Trek. Time well spent – I might not qualify as a Trekkie, but you can call me Niner anytime:

Star Trek fans who believe Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the best series of the franchise adopted the title of Niner following the episode “Take Me Out to the Holosuite“, in which Captain Benjamin Sisko formed a baseball team “The Niners”. (Wikipedia)

Nerdy and nice. Wonder where I should proceed next? Captain Picard beware…