Heroes

I want to thank my brother for introducing the TV series Heroes to me. He has given me a lot of things to watch lately and the sheer amount of it all has made me turn to regular TV instead. It just seemed a little too much – one season of Prison break, one season of Weeds and now one season of Heroes. I could sit for days just watching TV, and even though I wouldn’t watch it all at once I would, after watching, know exactly how many hours I’ve wasted on these shows instead of doing something productive or spending time with real people. But yesterday when I came home from work at around 8pm I was so tired that the only thing I could manage to do was to turn on my computer and sit down to watch TV. And as it was Wednesday I had a choice of CSI New York (which is even worse than CSI Miami) or the SubTV movie, so I chose Heroes – it is always nice to have a third option 🙂

And I was blown away! The cast consists of about 20 people and it just continues to grow for every episode. And the actual story, jumping back and forth in time like that can drive any inexperienced viewer crazy. But I, as a true TV-addict, have the time of my life! This is how TV should be! And the Japanese, I just love it!

I must warn those of you who might not know me that well. Yes my favorite TV-show is still Gilmore girls but… I have a huge fetish for supermen. X-men, the fantastic four, Dark angel, Matrix (although I’ve still managed to avoid the last one of the three movies) and the list goes on.  So I’m not saying that everyone will enjoy this TV-series, and I must admit that so far I’ve only watched three episodes (yes I watched them all yesterday) and I was a bit tired so my judgment might not have been the very best… But I still recommend everyone to watch it when they start showing it on Finnish TV this fall/winter.

The story is as follows: Human beings have now come to the point in evolution where they (at least some of them) have gotten extraordinary abilities like flying, mind reading, changing the time continuum. This is all caused by changes in their DNA (here I’m sniggering to myself as the public still thinks DNA is such a huge mystery that TV can make money and stories out of it, I’m not saying that people believe that things like this could happen, I think they like the idea that they’re not able, with 100% certainty, to say that it’s not possible). So their DNA is changed and their new abilities must serve a purpose. This purpose as always is a battle between good and evil. Should the powers be used to destroy or to save the planet? Is the purpose of these God given gifts to go on a rampage and destroy all your enemies/all the people like yourself or is it to save humanity? Tuff choice it seems. Well no-one really knows how one would react to receiving such powers until you’ve actually got them…

     

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Conversation cards

Question: What day(s) in a year do you look forward to the most? (Probably a lousy translation but you get the point)

As I read Anna-Karin’s answer I came to realize that I enjoy the waiting more than the actual day. With a few exceptions of course.  Take for example the Twelfth Night masquerade that is held yearly at the Henriksson resident. It’s almost more fun to plan my outfit than to attend the actual event, because when I’m finally there I have to humbly admit that my costume is less fantastic than someone else’s. Before I get there, even as I get out of the car, I can still imagine myself as the grand costume inventor. Sadly, this of course is not the truth… I do enjoy myself at the party but the actual planning is almost more of a thrill.

I guess almost every “big” day has a week or even a month of preparation behind it. Like Christmas (although I do enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day more than any other day in December), birthdays and Easter (you have to have grown that Easter grass for at least a week in advance). As I looked at A-K’s list I could only see one day that truly requires no shopping, baking or cleaning and that was the Art Night in Vasa. What a marvelous day! Or rather night as it starts around 6pm and goes on until early morning the following day. You can visit all the museums for free, there are concerts in the streets and people are selling home made stuff, like jewelry and table-cloths. And the most amazing thing is that everyone is out in the streets, young and old. Just walking around with family and friends. If the weather is nice it’s almost the best thing of the whole year.

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Barcelona

As you might have noticed I’ve been on a little trip to Barcelona and here is a review:        I judge the towns I visit on three things:

1. Their public transportation. Which in Barcelona scored high points as their metro system runs through the entire city and where it doesn’t manage to go they have busses or funiculars. Also a plus for there being no edges when going from the street onto the sidewalks, which makes the life of skaters and cyclists a lot easier.
2. Amount of trash cans. (I must add that all of these points are from a tourist’s point of view, if I would be an actual resident this would not be the first thing I’d look for.)Again Barcelona scores high as there were bins every twenty meters and on both sides of the road next to every crosswalk. This is a thing I appreciate since walking around half of Tokyo with an apple core in my hand not able to find anywhere to throw it. But you have to notice that I did not mention anything about their recycling policies…
3. The amount of public rest rooms. And this should not equal the number of Mc Donalds the city has but the number of toilets made available to the public by the state. I’m sad to say that on this point Barcelona scored zero. I did see some rest rooms by the beeches but in town – nil. The only rest room available was at the ever so reliable McD (although I have to warn the people planning on traveling to Finland as here even these bathrooms cost money to visit). But to my amazement, even though the McD as per usual was filled with people, there was no queue to the toilet. Where did everyone go to pee?? The only answer I could come up with was that they all had hotels that were in the city center and therefore were able to go back to their rooms every time they needed to.

High points during the trip: For me it was the weather which enabled me to get a gorgeous tan! Lying on the beach was utterly relaxing. For my brother I guess it was the movie “24 weeks later” which I was lured into watching. It was so scary I had to close my eyes through most of it. Man eating zombies, do I need to say more…

The low point for both me and my brother was going to the museum of contemporary art. I felt quite bad after by brother so graciously had agreed on going when I found out that the exhibition consisted of the most depressing art I’d ever seen. Art should evoke new ideas and make you think about stuff you usually take for granted, but this was just boring – boring and depressing.

An other low point for me was having three blisters on my left foot during the entire trip. Or they were more like wounds than blisters, but hurt just the same.

Well here are some pictures, maybe I didn’t tell you that much about the actual city but I highly recommend visiting it, so just go there and see it for yourself!

1. The city
2. The beach
3. My brother and graffiti. Obviously they didn’t have harsh penalties for spraying graffiti as we could see it on practically every building in town, but considering the 30.05€ penalty for smoking inside metro trains I’m not so surprised.
4. The traditional Catalonian dance – sardana
5. The fountain show at Montjüic
6. Me at the Arc de Triomf in Barcelona versus me at the Arc de Triomf in Vientiang (Laos)

    

    

  

 

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This shoes aint made for walking

As there’ll probably be a lot of walking in Barcelona I bought a pair of great walking shoes. Well they were the only pair that actually fit. And yesterday I had the great idea of trying them out, so I went out for a short one hour walk. Here is the result:

               

Blood! These shoes had a special ability of not giving you blisters but open wounds. After walking for half an hour I started to get some pain in the area of my ankle, unfortunately as I had already walked for half an hour I still had the same amount of time left to walk. I had no money for a bus ticket and didn’t feel like begging a passer by to carry me so I just walked through the pain. When I came home I saw that the shoe had some how gnawed its way into my heel. Well at least I know where to put the band aid the next time I’m going out for a walk…

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dancing at night

As I’ve been working so late these past two days my sleeping habits have become somewhat altered. I find myself sitting in front of the TV until midnight not feeling quite up for bed. When coming home at 8 pm in the evening, going to sleep at 10.30 just isn’t an option. But luckily for me there are real pearls to be found in late night TV. (Even though I think it has been statistically proven that the shows they send at 00.30 are only good when the viewer is half asleep.) Yesterday I ended up watching a Canadian movie called CQ2. It was about, and I quote: A touching story about teenage Rachel who, through modern dance, seeks to satisfy her hunger for life.  Well I did only watch the last 45 min of it but was very much impressed. Not so much by the movie itself but by the dancers and the choreography. I just love modern dance!

Or should it rather be called contemporary dance, like contemporary art? Is modern dance as passé as modern art that was buried in the 70s?

Anyhow, me and my brother are going to Barcelona for a little vacation next week and inspired by the movie I checked to see if there were any shows going on featuring modern dance. Unlucky for me (but maybe not for my brother, whom I would have forced to come with me) we just missed a couple of performances by the famous Cloud gate dance theatre of Taiwan. I was so disappointed as I missed them also when they came to perform in Hong Kong. But all hope isn’t gone yet, someday I’ll see them dance! And for now, I guess I just have to make do by watching their videos on youtube.

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