I was challenged by/got an award from Carina to name 7 things you might not know about me. Thank you Carina! And if you’re wondering who this person could be just follow the link above or find her name in my blogroll. She is a childhood friend of mine who’s now married and has her own house and two beautiful daughters. AND she is currently building the sweetest doll house I’ve ever seen. So envious. I’d like to have some kids just so that it wouldn’t look so vierd when I want to play with toys.

Kun tämän palkinnon saat
Kiitä sitä jolta sait tunnustuksen
Kerro seitsemän asiaa itsestäsi, mitä muut eivät vielä tiedä
Anna tunnustus seitsemälle
Linkitä nämä blogissasi
Kerro näille seitsemälle tunnustuksesta

Seitsemän asiaa itsestäni:
1. I have a pattern phobia. I get really nauseated whenever I see certain patterns, for example the seed house of a sunflower when it’s getting a bit old. 2. The movie that I’ve watched the most times is Charlies Angels. I just love it, despite the sexism.

3. I collect icons, but you probably knew that already. I’m just telling you so that if you go on a trip to one of the Mediterranean countries you could remember to bring one back for me I currently own six.

4. I never failed an exam when I was at Helsinki University. AND I wrote all of them (except maybe one) on the set date. (I figured this would be the perfect time to brag…)

5. This year, I ordered a take out pizza for the first time in my life.

6. I’m still afraid of needles, after being a diabetic for five years! But I’m only afraid if they’re longer than 5mm and someone else is pushing them into my arm.

7. I tend to read at least two foreign fashion/interior design magazines a month. In a year I’ve probably read five times the amount of magazines compared to books…

I hereby reward/challenge:

• Lena
• Ulrika
• Janne
• Jeannette
• Hanna D
• And just anyone who’d like to join in

There are some rules when it comes to watching TV. The most important one being: All great shows air at impossible hours.

This is a rule with some modifications. Because great shows will always find their way to the masses (meaning: they will all, at some point, start to air at 9pm).

So the rule should be: Only watch shows that have been upgraded from say 11pm on a Friday evening to 9pm on a Thursday.

This is a terrific rule when you want to distinguish between all the CSI replicas out there.

You should therefore watch:

- NCIS. Navy CSI but so much more. It has personality. It has a goth. And it did not start to air at humane hours until they had killed off the first female investigator. Yes, it is true, the Mossad agent has not always been there! (Can I just say that those in charge of the Finnish television are total idiots!)

- Bones. Also a show that has strong CSI connection – but again, is so much more. It has personality. It wants to connect with the nerd inside of you. And it has also been upgraded from 12 to 9 o’clock on Saturday nights.

And finally, a show that still airs at 22.30 on regular Thursday evenings is The Closer. Also very much like CSI. But here you have a cat, a big handbag and a very feminine way of always having a bad conscience about something or another. (Although I do admit that all the episodes share the same pattern: Bad guy won’t talk, boss gets epiphany about the case from her everyday life, boss goes into the interrogation room, boss gets bad guy to confess)

AND, what do all these shows have in common?? All the investigating groups are  led by females. This might be a subconscious trigger for me…

The rule is then updated: Always watch shows that have aired at inhumane hours AND where the boss is played by a woman!

There you go – you can stop zapping.

Woke up in the middle of the night and started thinking about the stupidity of rating TV-shows.

For instance, why do Wallander movies have an F15 rating and air after 10pm when a show like Emily of New Moon is considered family oriented and airs at 6pm, right after the regular children’s program?

I get serious angst watching Emily. Would you let your kids watch a series where these are the main characters:

- Emily, her mother died when E was very little and her father meets a similar faith when he suffers a heart attack while standing on a roof. Bonus: Emily can see ghosts.

-Aunt Laura is addicted to opium. Bonus: you get to see her in a mental asylum – ice bath and all.

-Aunt Elizabeth dies at sea. Bonus: Emily is the one to find the shipwreck including dead people floating around it.

-Cousin Jimmy falls in love with a woman who has been a victim of incest – and is pregnant because of it. Bonus: We get to see her kill her father with a letter holder.

Stupidity was the word.

It started quite unnoticeable. I read book nr one, two and three of the Stephanie Plum series. And I thought they were really funny! Stephanie being a lousy bounty hunter, blowing up cars all the time, and having to work alongside an ex-whore and her grandmother who likes to look at corpses. It was hilarious! But now I’m at book nr 12 and let me tell you – there’s more action going on in bed than in the streets of Jersey!

And then came the TV-movies based on Nora Roberts’ books. Horrendous dramatizations where there’s always a woman who returns home, or finds her new place in life, or moves to a new town – but she is still haunted by her past, trying to find out if the guy she is seeing is her soul mate or could it be that HE is the one going around killing all of her loved ones… Oh, the excitement – not! If you’re not totally brain dead you’ve probably figured out the ending 10 minutes into the film.

And what is my latest must-see? Oh, but of course it’s “Ihanan Elisan tytär” – “La figlia di Elisa”. The series is set in the late 18th century where the Italians are ruled by the cruel French army. Agnese (the daughter of Elisa) returns to her home estate where she instantly falls in love withthe noble rebel, who accidentally happens to be the son of her mother’s sworn enemy… Oh yeah, the plot thickens, and we are now at episode 15/16 and everything looks quite grim for the two love birds. What will happen? One thing is for sure; at 8:50pm on Sunday evening, I’ll be sitting in front of the TV.

This is where you have to take a step back and look at what you’re actually doing. Would I ever in my life have started to read Janet Evanovich’s books if I knew what would come? And would I actually consider reading a book by Nora Roberts? The answer is of course no and NO.

So considering this I ask myself; does singlehood make your braincells die? Or is it just that women too can find themselves thinking with other parts of their bodies…?

Well, I have no time to ponder this since the series “Bonkers” is about to start. Here the lead lady’s fantasies come to life when she finds herself living with her favourite soap star – problem is, no one but she can see him…

I seem to be humming the first song a lot!

And now I really have to wash the dishes!

My TV dependency has reached new levels.

When I moved in to my new flat I quickly came to the conclusion that they only support digi-boxes with cable function in this building. Crap for me since my box (50 euros I had to pay for it two years ago!) only functions with antenna.

With the excuse that I’m still paying my TV-licence and that my washing machine was so extremely cheap, I walked to the nearest Anttila to get myself a TV (so far I’ve only watched TV via my computer – with the help of a TV- and a digi-box of course).

There I realized that my apartment would totally fit a 26” flat screen. Unfortunately I can now tell you that a 26” box does not exactly fit into an IKEA bag. I therefore had to carry the box in a very uncomfortable position when walking all the way back home.

This is the route I took. And I tell you – I almost lost all faith in humanity – no one even asked if they could help me. Here I am, carrying a 15kg heavy box across town and no one even bothers ask how I’m doing. Or maybe it’s just that I look so incredibly strong…

But I got it home and have thuroughly enjoyed it ever since. And about the size of the thing; in a home design program they would probably say that it’s the “focal point of the room”

And today my faith in human kind was restored!

I had bought a bicycle basket at Anttila (a fantastic store by the way) but couldn’t really figure out how to get it screwed onto my bike. Or rather, I was standing contemplating how many screws I would have to unscrew to get the handlebars off it.

Then my neighbour came rolling into the garage on his motorbike and saw my troubled look. He reassured me that I wouldn’t have to undo any more screws and then tried to pull the handlebars off the bike. Easier said then done since the bike is probably 20 years old and has a wonderful patina of rust all over it. When after a lot of huffing and puffing he finally got it off he quickly went to get some oil, cleaning spray and some rags so that I could grease up the old thing and maybe get the handlebars back on the bike myself.

So after today I will not only be able to get my groceries home from the store but I will also be able to grease my bike chains.

How about that

(spoiler alert! only for those who have watched the movie!)

So I had read the reviews before watching this movie (Låt den rätte komma in/Let the right one in by director Tomas Alfredson). Everyone said it was great. A sweet coming of age story about a boy who befriends a girl-vampire.

In my eyes, this was not the case.

Did anyone actually think that the girl was helpless, sweet, loving…? I thought she was a manipulative thing. Yes a thing.

It becomes quite clear when she says that she’s not really a girl. Some might think that she refers to being a vampire. Some might think that it’s because she’s so much older than her 12 year appearance. I think it’s because she’s not human at all – she’s like a rock, a manipulative rock.

There are no feelings there. She’s just using the boy to get someone to do stuff that she’s not able to do. Just like she used the man that followed her around in the beginning. The one that she brutally pushed aside when he couldn’t fulfill his tasks. Or actually, he was already so brainwashed that he sacrificed himself for her.

And now, she was moving on to a more suitable candidate. Someone who would ultimately face the same death as his predecessor.

And because of the lack of emotion I actually found the movie boring. I was watching a weak boy and a manipulative rock that needed each other in two very different ways. The boy needed someone to feel that he existed and the girl/rock needed someone to be able to exist.

To call the movie sweet – I don’t know what they were thinking!

Eli aka the rock

Every time I get sick I am horrified by the decay of the Finnish television. Where are all the reruns of Little house on the prairie or MacGyver?? There is absolutely nothing on between 10am and 1pm, and when they actually start to air something other than TV-shop we are forced to watch shows like “we’re having a baby”, “E! Entertainment” or something relating to plastic surgery.

So what to do at five o’clock in the afternoon except catching up on The bold and the beautiful. Today’s episode was named: Brooke and one woman’s soap opera.

Some qoutes

-Respect the ring…no more sneaking into the sauna, it’s inappropriate!

-My God, your life’s like a soap opera!

- He’s enganged to another woman. – So, I’m just going to except that!?

And after the loving advice of the ex-wife (“I want you to put the chaos behind you…”) the screen suddenly turns blue and they have to jump three scenes back to get the thing started again. We then have to listen to the same repetitions all over again and the plot doesn’t even have time to come to the place when we all got a mini heart attack (when the screen turned blue) before they have to show the end-notes.

Well, we’ll just have to wait til tomorrow to see if something dramatic happened at the end. The next episode is called: Flowers from the maestro.

Can you find Ridge…

Curiosity: The legendary Beritta Markkula who writes the headlines for the series has also written a short story on how wonderful she thinks the series is, you’ll find it here (in Finnish).

I just wanted to recommend a movie to all of you who have Sub-TV. It’s called Järntrean/Rautakolmonen/3-iron and airs tomorrow at 9pm. And don’t worry about it being on Finnish TV – they don’t say that much, in fact I don’t think the main character says anything at all.

It’s a Korean movie about a homeless guy who breaks in to peoples houses when they are away from home. As a payment for their “hospitality” he washes their clothes before he leaves. One day he breaks into a house that isn’t empty. There lives a women who decides to leave her abusive husband and follow the life of the homeless guy.

At least this is how I remember it… A beautiful and sad movie. 

I’m having a TV-free evening and I’m feeling the abstinence problem already. Two hours of TV a day is the minimum for me if I don’t want to start sweating and itching.

Today, however, would have been the perfect day to watch TV since I got the bill for my TV-licence. People who live outside the Nordic countries tend to raise their eyebrows at this; What, you need to pay to watch TV?? The answer is yes - if you have a conscious, and no - if you are a good liar.

I have parents with a very strong sense of duty and I am therefore forced to pay 225 euros and 70 cents each year to watch TV.

I have been paying ever since I got a place of my own and I am now wondering if it wouldn’t be time for some kind of reward. Most students do not pay for a TV-licence and as I have so faithfully been doing this I think I should get some benefits. Like why can’t you get one year of free TV for every 10 years you pay your TV-licence?

Just an idea… I think they definitely need to come up with some kind of carrot system when more and more people stop watching TV.